


Can't Take the Sky from Me

by cytheriafalas



Category: Firefly, SHINee
Genre: Drama, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-27
Updated: 2012-07-10
Packaged: 2017-12-21 02:35:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/894793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cytheriafalas/pseuds/cytheriafalas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A SHINee AU set in the Firefly verse, although you'll see some Star Wars influences (I swear, no Jedi) in there as well. Primarily JongKey, with side 2Min and JoonYu. Also, random Jonghyun pairing that I'm pretty sure has never existed in the history of fanfiction, but not at all the primary pairing. Knowing Firefly isn't really necessary to understand the plot, but it will help to understand the importance of some of the Browncoat/Alliance references</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Onew settled _Juliette_ down in the main landing field on Aziel and took a minute to power the engines down, but Jonghyun could see a faint, excited smile curving his lips. He was practically shaking as he waited for each stage of the shut-down process to finish.

“I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” Onew said. “Give me a call if anything happens.”

“We’ll be fine,” Jonghyun said, reaching above his head to catch another of the switches. “This is almost done anyway. Go see your fiancé.”

Onew practically flew to his feet, the smile growing even larger. “Thank you!”

“Tell Joon I said ‘hi.’”

Onew blushed and almost sprinted off the ship. Jonghyun could see a Mule parked a few feet to the side, with a dark-haired man perching on the back ramp. As soon as Onew appeared, the man stood up and caught Onew around the waist.

Jonghyun turned to give them their privacy and pulled down the mic for the shipwide comm. “Taemin, you ready?”

“Yeah, just one second. I’ll meet you in the loading bay,” Taemin’s voice said, echoing through the empty ship.

It sent a pang through Jonghyun. There should have been more of them. Not for the first time, he hated, violently _hated_ , the Alliance. One job went bad, very bad, and they’d lost not only their navigator, their doctor, and the only good cook they’d had on _Juliette_ in Jonghyun’s memory, they’d lost their closest friends. It left Taemin, Onew, and Jonghyun to run a ship by themselves. More than anything, it had left Jonghyun alone.

“Are you okay?” Taemin asked, hopping down the last few stairs.

Jonghyun forced a smile onto his face and slung an arm around Taemin’s shoulders.

“You’ve got grease on your face,” Jonghyun said. Taemin made a face, but ignored it, choosing to twist a few lengths of hair back up into his ponytail instead.

“Did Onew leave already?”

“He and Joon’re probably in bed already,” Jonghyun confirmed. “Or alongside the road somewhere, if they couldn’t wait long enough.”

“Hyung,” Taemin whined, ducking out from beneath Jonghyun’s arm. It was a terribly old-fashioned form of address that Taemin only used when he wanted something very badly. It was a bad habit, but both Jonghyun and Onew gave in every time. Jonghyun laughed, and stepped out of the loading bay. Taemin let the door close and followed behind.

“All right, let’s go,” Jonghyun said. “What was it you wanted?”

“Needed,” Taemin corrected. “If I don’t get it, we don’t leave atmo.”

“We’re broke,” Jonghyun reminded him as they turned onto the dirty street that marked the shopping district in this tiny city on Aziel.

It was sickening to see the way these people fought for every little thing they had, giant containing walls up all around just to keep the worst of the winds and dust outside, while the Core Planets had all been properly terraformed. The smallest mechanical shopping district in Beaumonde was larger than this entire city, much less the pathetic excuse for a street this city had. He _hated_ the Alliance.

“We’re gonna have to be not broke,” Taemin said, gently drawing Jonghyun back to the present and away from memories of flashing munitions.

Taemin gave him a weak smile. He understood, of course he did, the little brat. Not that he was “little” anymore, by any definition of the word. He’d just turned twenty-five, but Jonghyun had known him since he was seventeen. Even so, Jonghyun smiled back, incapable of not smiling when Taemin did.

In an attempt to distract himself, and keep Taemin from asking any questions Jonghyun didn’t want to answer, he pointed toward a building, only slightly more rundown than any of the other ones around them. It had lewd, flickering holographic photos rotating around it and a giant sign proclaiming it to house the best on Aziel. It didn’t specify _what_ it housed, but the pictures were enough.

“That one kinda looks like you, Taeminnie. I bet you could get a job there.”

Taemin wrinkled his nose in Jonghyun’s direction, barely sparing a glance for the suggestive, and sometimes more than suggestive, positions the women were in. Sometimes Jonghyun wondered if the kid had a single sexual bone in his body, and then had to laugh quietly to himself. Bone. Taemin was never amused and consistently asked him if he was sure he hadn’t gotten his birth date confused.

“I’m not a prostitute. I’m a mechanic, remember?”

“Oh, right. I get those confused sometimes.” Jonghyun saw the contact they were coming to meet, the building with a single splash of yellow paint dripping from gaudy yellow windows, the only color any of the buildings had. “There. That’s the place.”

It took Taemin two hours to find the part he was looking for, some odd thing that came with a massively heavy container that Jonghyun’s arms ached just looking at. Once Taemin had looked it over, several times, and refused two flawed parts, it took another hour to haggle the seller down to a price they could afford. It left them with almost literally nothing, hardly any money and the only things they had worth trading was the food they needed to get them to their next stop. If everything went right, though, they would make more than enough after that. The seller, their contact, reminded them several times to be “careful, very careful” with the container.

By the time they made it back to _Juliette_ , lugging the massive container behind them, a fourth hour had passed. Onew had already returned to their ship and opened the loading bay doors. He was standing with Joon in the shade their ship provided, Joon’s arms wound loosely around his waist. He had also brought with him two men Jonghyun didn’t recognize. He didn’t like it at all.

When they got closer, Jonghyun could see Joon’s chin resting on Onew’s shoulder, his lips moving as he spoke quietly in Onew’s ear. Onew was smiling, happier than Jonghyun had seen him in months. They hadn’t been back here since just after the Alliance had killed… since The Job.

Taemin nodded his thanks when they got the container in and took off down the corridor, hauling it behind him toward the engine room. The container had a fake lining, beneath which was several hundred pounds of lase, the ammunition most needed on nearly all the planets. Jonghyun preferred his service pistol, generally more reliable and cheaper. Taemin would stow the lase in the smuggler’s holds they had scattered throughout the ship, and then install whatever little piece of machinery he had in his possession and they would be on their way.

Jonghyun brought his hand up to wipe the sweat off his face, turning to face Onew. He’d been born on St. Alban’s, a planet significantly colder than this one, and he was not at all used to the warmth. Space was comfortably cool, at least with the protection of _Juliette_ around him. This part of Aziel was… not. It was hot and dusty and Jonghyun hated it. Onew had not yet disentangled himself from his fiancé, for which Jonghyun couldn’t blame him. If he saw Joon more than once a month, it was a miracle, even if they stopped planetside as often as they could.

He hated it even more when he saw the cool, mocking smile on one of the strangers’ faces. He was a little taller than Jonghyun, which honestly wasn’t a feat and Jonghyun was mostly over it at this point, but instead of the more rational, earthy colors worn by both Joon and the other stranger, he seemed to favor the brighter greens and pinks and blues that were so popular on the Core. That was enough to tell Jonghyun that he probably wouldn’t like him, whoever he was. Nobody from the Core was worth their sweat, especially this far out in the dregs of society. Jonghyun resisted the urge to sneer.

The second one was even taller than the first. That Jonghyun resented. Nobody had any business being _that_ tall, but he at least looked like he could belong here. Jonghyun thought he could maybe like him. Maybe.

“Jonghyun, this is Key and Minho,” Joon said, gesturing with his head, his hands too comfortable on Onew’s waist. The flashy one was Key. Good to know. The name fit him. Minho gave him a faint smile, the kind that said he definitely knew Jonghyun didn’t like them already. “He’s the one you’re really going to have to win over. My Onew’s entirely too trusting.”

“We’re taking them on,” Onew said, ignoring Joon aside from a sideways look that just made Joon smile more widely. “They’re friends of his that need to get offplanet.”

“What’s their destination?” Jonghyun asked. He thought he would make it a little more clear that he _did not like_ these strangers on his ship by completely ignoring them. Onew’s ship. Either way, Jonghyun considered it his personal responsibility to keep it safe.

“Anywhere offplanet,” Key answered. He’d even dyed rainbow streaks in his hair. Jonghyun _really_ didn’t like him. “Through circumstances entirely beyond our control, we really need to be gone by sunset.”

That did not entice Jonghyun to trust him one whit more. Anybody given a “off by sunset” warning was generally not somebody he wanted to add to the ship’s roster, but Onew didn’t seem to be giving him a choice. Truthfully, Onew was one of the better judges of character Jonghyun had ever met. If he hadn’t been, Jonghyun would probably still be trapped with… he tried not to think about it. He probably would still be trapped on Liann Jiun, where he’d been abandoned. Imprisoned. Really, same difference.

“We can pay,” Minho offered. Ah, yeah. Jonghyun liked him.

He heard the sound of _Juliette_ ’s engines powering up behind him. The sound was smooth, not at all like the pulsing, rocky sound they’d been hearing for the past several months. So Taemin really had needed that part.

“Hah!” Taemin’s voice cried, echoing through the shipwide comm. system. “Everything’s shiny back here, captain. We’re good to go.”

“They’ve already moved their stuff in,” Onew said, reminding Jonghyun oh-so gently that he was actually the one in charge of who got on and off his ship. Jonghyun nodded his acceptance and moved on board, leaving Key and Minho to follow of their own accord.

“Jonghyun!” Joon called, making Jonghyun pause and turn around.

“Yeah?”

“Take care of him, okay? I do love him an awful lot and I’d really like to actually get to marry him someday.”

Jonghyun smiled, ignoring the painful wrench in his heart. “I’ll make sure he makes it home to you again.”

“Thank you.” Joon’s voice was entirely serious.

Jonghyun turned to go inside, leaving Onew to say goodbye to his fiancé. Ten minutes later, Onew joined him in the cockpit, his face blank. It hurt Jonghyun to see his friend like that, but he knew better than to say anything. He could see Joon retreating a safe distance away, but as soon as he’d reached the point, he stopped and waited. Without being asked, Jonghyun flicked the comm. to broadcast outside the ship and glanced over at Onew.

“I love you,” Onew said, his voice entirely too heavy for the words he was saying, and then reached up and shut the comms off himself. Joon waved and, from what Jonghyun could tell, blew a kiss in their direction.

“Taemin, you ready?” Jonghyun asked, keying up the engine room.

“We’re good,” Taemin’s voice said. “Everything looks good back here.”

“All right,” Onew said, his voice broadcasting throughout the entire ship. “We’re on our way to Koschei. We should be there in the next three or four days. From there, we’ll see.”

 _Juliette_ was ancient by most any definition of the word, but she rose smoothly from the ground and made her way out of the planet’s atmosphere and into the dark space. Jonghyun instantly felt more comfortable when Aziel’s too-large sun disappeared behind them. It took them only a couple of  minutes for them to get far enough out to let the ship pilot itself, following the coordinates Onew programmed in, and then the two men stood from their seats, working their way back to the large, open space that served as their common room and kitchen.

“Jonghyun,” Onew said, stopping him in the middle of the hall. That was never a good voice. Nothing good came from that tone of voice. Ever. “I just wanted to warn you, we moved Key into T--um, his old room.”

He felt an instant and violent dislike for stupid Key and his stupid colors. Onew must have seen something cross his face because he cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“It’s just… Jonghyun, it’s the only other habitable room we have right now. I know this is… I know you don’t like it, but it’s what we had to do. I’ll start clearing one of the other ones out and we can move him as soon as we do.”

Not that Jonghyun had been in _his_ room since he’d died but the _thought_ of a stranger in there, where _they_ had been…” He fixed a smile to his face. “It’s okay.”

“Is it?” Onew asked, surprised. “I mean… I know it’s still soon but--”

“It’s been a couple of months now, Onew. I’m okay.”

It had been six months and fourteen days. If you wanted to get really picky, it had been six months, fourteen days, and six hours since _he_ ’d died, bleeding out in the middle of their kitchen because their doctor was already dead and he was dying anyway, so what was the point of making it hurt more to carry him? He just wanted to be able to see Jonghyun while he died.

Onew gave him a suspicious look. “I’ll still see if I can get Taemin to help me--”

“I’m going to wash up,” Jonghyun interrupted. “I’ll be out later.”

“Jonghyun--”

For the first time in his life, he walked away while Onew was talking. He brushed straight past Minho without even seeing him. He would have missed that Taemin was walking with him if he hadn’t called his name, which Jonghyun also ignored. He couldn’t handle people right now, not even Taemin. He could faintly hear Minho asking, “Is he okay?” but he didn’t hear Taemin’s answer.

His door slid open and he stepped inside, wishing it shut with something more than a faint rattle. Without bothering to change, he threw himself down on his bed, covering his head with his pillow. He didn’t want to think. He hated thinking and the thoughts that came with it. He didn’t really mean to, but he managed to fall asleep, still dressed and covered in dirt and sweat from the planet.

Jonghyun woke to his alarm, reminding him it was standard morning. He wanted to throw it across the room, but he pushed himself up anyway and set about washing, which he really had intended to do the day before. By the time he stepped out of his room, ruffling his hair to dry it a little further, his bad mood from the previous day had mostly faded.

At least, it had faded until he forgot to take the long way around and walked past The Door, which was just opening. Key stepped out, dressed in another ridiculously colorful outfit. For just a second, a fraction of a moment, before he saw Key and saw that he was too short and too colorful, he expected to see _him_ walk out, and when he didn’t Jonghyun’s heart clenched.

“Is everything all right?” Key asked, peering at him.

Jonghyun could see into the room, the bed exactly where it had been before, not that it was going to move as it was built into the wall, the closet door just a little bit open. The paintings that had been on the walls were gone, packed up into a little box in Jonghyun’s room that he still could bear to open.

He couldn’t speak. His throat closed and the raw grief rose up in him again before he could find something with which to stomp it back down. Key reached for him hesitantly and Jonghyun had to move. He had to go somewhere that wasn’t there, where the bed and bare walls weren’t. He turned and ran, sprinting toward the room that served as their workout room.

It was empty, exactly as he’d hoped. He keyed in the code to lock the door and slid down the cool wall. For the first time in his miserable life he wished he were planetside.

Jonghyun spent the next two days avoiding everyone. The only person he willingly spent time with was Onew and only when he was tracking that annoying, blipping spot that had been popping up behind them randomly since they left Aziel. It stayed too far away for him to identify.

It could have just been debris, which was Onew’s vote. They were headed toward the outer edge of the rims. There were Reavers here, which meant destroyed ships, which meant scavengers, which meant more destroyed ships. The blip disappeared and reappeared without any rhyme or reason, but Jonghyun couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Whatever time he didn’t spend in the cockpit with Onew, he spent locked in his room, doing absolutely nothing but avoiding the two strangers and even, he was a little sorry to admit, Taemin. He did sit-ups until his stomach ached and then push-ups until his arms wouldn’t hold him up any longer. He did everything he could to keep his mind from thinking. It did work for most of the next three days, up until Onew _politely_ overrode his security code and unlocked his door.

\--

“No, it’s easy,” Taemin said, as he was walking back from the engine room with Minho. “All you have to do is override the first safety and just make a second one in its place, because, really, the safeties are there for a reason. You just don’t need to do it the way they wanted it to. That’s why _Juliette_ is the fastest ship I’ve ever seen.”

They’d made it a few steps further down the hallway when Taemin heard raised voices from Jonghyun’s room. He was about to tell Jonghyun that his door wasn’t shut when Onew’s words made him freeze.

“You have to stop treating Key like he had anything to do with Taecyeon’s death.”

“ _Don’t say his name_!”

“Not saying his name isn’t going to make him any less dead, Jonghyun. I know it hurts, and I’m sorry that you didn’t manage to die too, but he’s gone and none of that is their fault.”

Taemin knew he should have gone, but he couldn’t move. There was a pause during which Jonghyun remained silent.

“I’m not asking you to take him into your loving family--”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“But I think you would like him if you gave him a chance.”

“I don’t want to give him a chance. He’s living in Taec--” Jonghyun’s voice choked a little, “Taecyeon’s room, he’s from the Core--”

“So you hate him because he was born on the Core Planets? When I found _you_ , you and Taecyeon were on a prison colony on Liann Jiun. Was I supposed to leave you there? For all I knew, you were the blackest murderers in the ‘verse, rather than just Browncoats too damn stupid to surrender when they offered you the chance. Joon introduced me to Key and Minho. You were a stranger who happened to have access to the parts I needed.”

“We should go,” Taemin said at last, catching Minho by the arm and hauling him past the door, the voices fading behind them.

“He can never _be_ Taecyeon, Jonghyun. No one can, and I’m sorry but you need to get over it.”

“Get over it?” Jonghyun demanded. “Would I ask you to ‘get over it’ if something happened to Joon?”

“That’s not the same.”

“The hell it isn’t…” The voices faded out as the two of them rounded the corner. Minho caught Taemin’s hand to stop him.

“What was that about?”

Taemin glanced around, sighing. He grabbed Minho’s arm and led him to his room, waiting until the door shut firmly behind them. Minho waited quietly, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Jonghyun hates the Alliance more than probably anyone else. He hates everything to do with them. We were… There used to be seven of us. We were working  a job… scavenging, really, but somehow the Alliance got word of what we were doing and…” Taemin sighed. “I was the only one who stayed on the ship. When they got back, we’d already lost the doctor. We had to leave them all behind. Taecyeon was the only one that survived long enough for them to even get him back to the ship.”

“Who was he?”

“He was Jonghyun’s… everything. He was the reason Jonghyun survived Liann Jiun, the reason he bothered to fight to get off. He’d said he hated the Alliance before but after…” Taemin shrugged. “He’d die if it meant he could take the Government down with him. I think, sometimes, that he’d be willing to sacrifice Onew and I if that was the only way.”

“And Key’s from the Core.”

Taemin nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Onew never calls him on it, even when he gets completely irrational. I can’t believe he did now.”

“Key’s not like the rest of them,” Minho said.

“It doesn’t matter to Jonghyun. He can’t differentiate. Or maybe he just doesn’t. I don’t know.”

“Taemin,” Minho began, shifting uncomfortably, “there’s something you need to know and we should have told you sooner, but Key wanted to wait until we were further out.” 

“Is this the kind of thing that I’m going to have to tell Onew and Jonghyun?”

“Probably.” Taemin just waited and Minho drew in a sharp breath. “We’re smugglers.”

“So are we,” Taemin said.

“I mean… we’re data smugglers.”

“So?” Taemin remembered, suddenly, the notices that had been scrolling across the public buildings on Aziel. “Wait. You’re _the_ data smugglers? The ones that every bounty hunter on Aziel wanted?”

Minho nodded. “That’s us. Me, really.”

“What did you steal?” Taemin demanded. “We’ve stolen entire armories and the worst we’ve gotten was a three-day blockade that we got out of within the first few hours anyway. And how did you get Joon to help you? He’s a hunter too.”

“Was,” Minho corrected. “Can you imagine him if somebody called him to take Onew’s bounty? He’s retired. Mostly. We stole some… we’ll call them ‘state secrets’ from Sihnon.”

“You stole state secrets from the _capitol_? How did you even get in? How did you get on planet?”

Minho’s smile was a little bit proud. “Joon wasn’t lying when he said I was good with computers.”

Taemin stared at him, completely uncomprehending for a few seconds. “You hacked into the flight computers on Sihnon?”

“And Londinium. I hacked into the entire system, deleted a couple outstanding arrest warrants for some friends of mine, scrambled their access history, and, just for the hell of it, adjusted some of their employee’s work schedules so it looked like they’d skipped work every Tuesday from eleven until two during the racing season.”

“I’m… impressed,” Taemin confessed. “I thought that was impossible.”

“I probably couldn’t do it again. The only reason they think it’s impossible is because as soon as they discover it, they close up that way in and immediately arrest the person responsible. As far as I know, only one or two people have escaped.”

“Where does that leave you?” Taemin asked.

Minho’s smile faded a little, but brightened again. “They’ll probably catch me one day, but as long as the information gets where it needs to go, I’ll have done my job.”

“They say Koschei is where the rebels recruit.”

Minho shrugged, running a hand through his messy hair. “They say a lot of things, especially about the rebels. I’m going to get something to eat. You’re welcome to come with me, if you want, but I won’t be surprised if you want to go to Onew and Jonghyun first.”

“Are you going to Key about Jonghyun?”

“That’s not our deal.”

He moved for the door, but Taemin stayed where he was, his hands in his pockets. “You and Key, though, that is our deal. We’ve carted fugitives before, but never without knowing about it.”

“I said I’d understand. I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re done.”

Minho walked out, turning toward the kitchen and Taemin turned the other way, heading back toward Jonghyun’s room. He could hear voices behind the door, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. He took that as a sign that Onew had at least managed to calm Jonghyun down. The voices fell completely silent when he knocked.

“Onew?”

“Taemin, can it wait?” Onew’s voice called through the door.

“I don’t think so.”

“Come in then,” Jonghyun said.

The door opened and Taemin tried not to stare as he stepped through. Jonghyun was sitting on his bed, his arms crossed protectively over his stomach. Onew was standing a few steps to the side, his hands in his pockets. There was a definite air of unresolved _something_ that Taemin was more than willing to pretend he didn’t sense.

“What’s wrong?” Onew asked.

“I was just talking to Minho and he told me something I think you should probably know.”

“Out with it,” Jonghyun said.

“You remember the notices we saw all over Aziel?” Taemin asked. “The ones about the data smugglers?”

Onew looked confused, but he hadn’t gone into the city. Jonghyun nodded.

“It’s Minho. And Key. They’re the smugglers. They stole information from Sihnon and they need us to bring them to Koschei to deliver it.”

“Still think it was just debris dogging us?” Jonghyun asked, raising his eyebrows in Onew’s direction.

“I’ll lose them,” Onew promised, turning for the door. “And then we’re having a talk with our new guests.”

“We’re having a talk with Joon next time we hit Aziel,” Jonghyun called after him. He saw Onew flicking his hand dismissively in their direction before he disappeared completely.

Taemin was standing uncomfortably in the middle of Jonghyun’s room, with the other man looking at him expectantly.

“You heard us arguing then?”

“No.”

“Liar,” Jonghyun said, standing and rolling out his shoulders.

 “I didn’t mean to overhear,” Taemin offered, watching him warily. It wasn’t that he was afraid of Jonghyun, just that he wasn’t entirely certain what he was supposed to do.

Jonghyun shrugged. “It’s nothing to worry about. Our captain made his position clear. I am to treat our guests with all due courtesy.” He paused and tilted his head. “There might be a lot less _due_ now, which makes my life easier.”

Taemin licked his lips and avoided looking at Jonghyun. “Key really isn’t that bad,” he offered. “He’s funny and sarcastic and I really do think you’d like him, if you stopped treating him like he had some kind of communicable disease.”

“Yeah, well, everyone from the Core has a communicable disease. It’s called ‘wealth.’ The problem is they don’t communicate it. They take and take and take until the rest of us out here on the Rims scrape by with whatever shit jobs we can get and have to eat protein for every meal because there’s nothing out here that isn’t taken and shipped back there.”

Taemin flinched at the venom in his voice. Jonghyun must have seen because he gave Taemin a weak smile, pausing on his way past to pat him on the shoulder.

“We’ll be okay. We’ll drop our guests on the nearest moon with an atmosphere and then we’ll be on our way.”

“We wouldn’t really, would we?” Taemin asked, following Jonghyun into the hallway. “We can’t just leave them.”

“Can’t just leave Minho, you mean?” Jonghyun teased, but he quickly became serious, turning to face Taemin in the hall. “I know you like him, Taemin, but he’ll get you killed if you try to keep him. Data smugglers do that. They piss off the wrong people, and you know he’s pissed off the wrong people, and they kill everyone they need to kill to get that information back.”

“I barely know him,” Taemin protested.

“Yeah, and you remember that,” Jonghyun said.

They’d only made it half way to the kitchen when they saw Minho heading back toward him room. Jonghyun caught his arm, swinging him around.

“Jonghyun!” Taemin said. “You don’t need to--”

Jonghyun gave him a hard look and Taemin fell silent.

“Why don’t you wait in the kitchen with us?” Jonghyun suggested. His voice was a little too nice, but Minho only looked once at Taemin before falling into step beside Jonghyun, letting himself be carried along with them.

They sat in uncomfortable silence for nearly half an hour before Onew came in, an unsure Key trailing behind him.

“We’re at Koschei,” Onew said sitting at the table at Jonghyun’s side. He looked at Minho and then Key. “You’re on your own.”

“What?” Jonghyun demanded. “We should turn them in. The reward would easily feed us for months. Maybe even years.”

“I promised Joon I would get them as far as Koschei,” Onew said. “And I have.”

“You can’t just leave them there,” Taemin protested. “They’ll get killed!”

“That’s not my problem. You and Jonghyun, you’re the ones I need to keep alive.”

“Let me make the drop,” Minho suggested. “I’ll come back and take Key, then we’ll go.”

“Minho--” Key began.

“You’re more recognizable than I am.”

“You can’t go alone,” Taemin said. “What if they catch you?”

“Then they catch me and no one else,” Minho said, turning toward Taemin. He smiled gently and Taemin felt his stomach sink. He expected to get caught.

“I’ll go with him,” Jonghyun said. “We’ll make the drop, come back, and then he can take Key and go.”

“I’ll come too,” Taemin said before he had a chance to really think about what he was saying.

“Absolutely not,” Jonghyun interrupted. “You’re the only one of us that doesn’t already have a price on his head. I’d like to keep it that way.”

“ _Hyung_.”

“That’s not working on me this time,” Jonghyun said. “You’re staying on the ship.” Taemin just sat there, his arms crossed and Jonghyun groaned. “Fine. But if you get caught, I’m leaving you behind.”

Everything was going fine until Jonghyun felt a burning, blinding pain in his side and he crumpled to the sound of shouts. He felt arms lifting him and his eyes opened, prepared to do… something… if it was one of the Alliance. It was Minho.

“Taemin,” Minho shouted, the words fading away in Jonghyun’s mind. “Press your hand to the wound. We need to move fast.”

There was a brief burst of pain and then nothing.

The next time Jonghyun was conscious, they were running up the ramp on _Juliette_ and Minho was shouting again. Did he never _stop_?

“Key! Goddamn it, _Key_!”

“What?” Key’s voice called. It sounded far away.

There was another voice, closer. “Jonghyun! Jonghyun, open your eyes. What happened?” Jonghyun didn’t _want_ to open his eyes. His side was burning, Taemin’s hand pressing too hard on the wound for any comfort. “Jonghyun, eyes open!”

Jonghyun jerked in surprise. He had never heard Onew so angry. When he finally did open his eyes, it was to the sight of Key bolting toward them down a corridor.

“Shit,” Key said, almost out of breath. “Take him to the infirmary. Hurry, Minho.”

It was tight, fitting three grown men in the corridor at once, Taemin still moving along awkwardly, half skipping to avoid tripping over feet or bulkheads that narrowed the corridor, hand too tight on Jonghyun’s side. Onew was just behind Minho, squeezing Jonghyun’s shoulder every time his eyes tried to close again, digging his nails in when that didn’t work.

“We were almost back,” Minho explained, maneuvering himself through the doorway. Jonghyun was not at all proud of the noise he made when his body shifted, Taemin’s hand lifting away and then pressing back down again. “I don’t know who they were.”

“Jonghyun, what the fuck did you do to yourself?” Key demanded.

“Didn’t do it to--” he cut off, biting his lips to block his pained cry when Minho eased him down onto the bed. He didn’t entirely manage it.

“It’s okay,” Key said, stroking his forehead gently. “You’re going to be okay. It’s not that bad.”

“You’re a fucking liar. I can see it in your face.”

“All of you, get out,” Key ordered. “I can’t have you under my feet. Jjong, you _are_ going to be okay.”

Jonghyun felt Taemin’s hand leave his side and he made a sound he swore was not a whimper, catching Key’s hand to ride out the wave of pain. “What did you call me?”

“Nothing. You’ve got to let me go, Jonghyun. I’m not going to leave you, but I have to hurry.”

Jonghyun let go, no longer strong enough to hold his own hand up. Key moved away, rustling through drawers Jonghyun couldn’t see. Honestly, he couldn’t see anything other than the ceiling straight above his head and even that was oddly fuzzy. Another wave of pain rushed through his body, starting at the wound and radiating inward. He thought even his organs hurt, which was an interesting experience.

“Talk to me, Jonghyun. I need you to stay with me for just a little longer and then you can sleep.”

He could barely hear Key, hardly had the energy to breathe, but he could still feel, and Key was prodding at the giant fucking hole in his side. He was peeling Jonghyun’s shirt away, bending over him.

“Jonghyun, talk to me.”

He didn’t want to. There was a hazy white light at the edges of his vision and there was a familiar face there. He wanted to see that face.

“Shit, Jjong, Jonghyun, stay with me just a little bit longer. Come on, you’re going to be okay, you just need to keep breathing for me.”

That voice was so annoying. The face had to be Taecyeon. He wanted Taecyeon.

“That’s right, Jonghyun. Tell me about Taecyeon. Just keep talking, let me hear that voice of yours.”

His body was numb everywhere except the burning spot in his side. Jonghyun couldn’t stay awake any longer. Taecyeon was right there. He could see him, he was so close. The last thing he heard was Key cursing, calling his name and he _didn’t care_.


	2. Chapter 2

Key heard the dull thud of Jonghyun’s hand falling off the bed and his head snapped back around.

“Shit! Shit, Jonghyun, not now. Jjong!”

He felt the shuddering of _Juliette_ rising into the sky, hitting atmo. A second later he felt the entire ship lurch to the side and Jonghyun’s body shifted, causing a fresh wave of blood to gush out. Key grabbed at the mic above the bed.

“Guys, I know we’re making our escape, but you _need_ to keep her steady.”

“We’re trying,” Onew’s voice said. “We’re almost out.”

There was another jolt and Key had to grab onto Jonghyun’s body to keep him on the bed. He swore again and reached for the restraints, hoping they would keep him steady enough to avoid hurting himself more. Not for the first time, Key wished he was back on Sihnon, with their well-lit, steady operating rooms, with a full team of nurses and other doctors.

Surgery had always been stressful, even with Sihnon’s newtech operating rooms and nurses. Key had gotten used to less working with Minho and his rebels, but this was far from ideal. He cut Jonghyun’s shirt free and bent over the operating table, wishing pointlessly once more for some real equipment, at least a camera to see what he was doing, before he set to repairing the mess that had once been Jonghyun’s side.

He’d seen his fair share of gore, but that didn’t make this any easier to stomach. He hated performing surgery on people he knew. There was a reason they weren’t allowed to do it at the hospital. They got too involved, they made mistakes. Well, if they weren’t Key, they made mistakes. It took him three hours to get all of the bleeding stopped for good, and another hour after that to make sure he hadn’t missed anything and finish sewing him up. When he finally did, he sat back, resting his forehead against his the backs of his wrists.

The rubber of the gloves stuck to his sweaty forehead and he was fairly certain he was smearing blood on his face, but he was too tired to care. Twenty-four stitches just to close the outer wound. Normally, Key felt some modicum of pride at his work, but he just felt drained.

Jonghyun was lying so still, the kind of still Key had seen hundreds of times at the hospital. Key had given him what painkillers they had on the ship to knock him out while he was sewing, but it was even more than that. If he hadn’t seen the steady, if shallow, rise and fall of Jonghyun’s breath and heard the accompanying blips from the machines, he would have thought he was dead. Jonghyun’s skin was pale and cold.

He took a few moments to move the trays and instruments to the side and then pulled his gloves off, dropping them down the disposal and returning to Jonghyun. Key ran his fingers along the skin just beyond the edge of the sterile white bandage. He could feel Jonghyun shivering beneath his fingertips and reached down to pull the thick blanket up over Jonghyun’s chest. The shivering subsided a little, but it was still enough to worry him.

He added a second blanket and waited. There were no changes. Key sat and took Jonghyun’s hand in his. He shouldn’t be doing this. He knew there was nothing good to come of it.

He sat like that for almost an hour before things started to go wrong. A sharp tremor shook Jonghyun’s body and then the sensors started to flash and beep at him. Jonghyun was dying. Key hadn’t missed anything in the wound, he knew he hadn’t. It was impossible. Something else was wrong, something that Key somehow knew he couldn’t fix with further surgery.

There was really only one option. Key administered one of the stim shots they kept nearby. Jonghyun’s body seized once, his body arching off the bed, and then he fell back in silence. The machines read steady life signs, and Key hunched over, resting his forehead against Jonghyun’s arm.

The door opened, and Minho stepped through. Key could hear his footsteps pause and then resume.

“Is he okay?”

“I don’t know,” Key said, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes. He was so tired. “I need better equipment. I’ve done everything I can for him right now.” Minho was silent, so Key kept talking, the words spilling from his lips before he could think about it. “The injury was bad, but he’s stronger than he’s being right now.”

“What do you mean?”

“He just almost died on me,” Key said. “The surgery should have been the most difficult for him, but he waited almost two hours to try and die on me.”

Minho put his hand on Key’s shoulder. “You need to get some sleep. You look exhausted.”

“I can’t sleep right now. Not until I get him stable.”

“He’s as stable as he’s going to be for a while now.”

Key shook his head, realizing he had put his hand back on Jonghyun’s bare shoulder. He drew his hand back carefully, but he knew Minho saw. Minho saw most everything. “I need to get him dressed again, and I need to make sure he doesn’t develop a fever, I need to watch for any reactions to the medicines, and I need to keep watching him…”

Minho took Key by the waist, lifting him almost effortlessly off the chair and turning him to face the other bed in the infirmary. “Get some sleep. I’ll stay right here and watch him.”

“You don’t know what to look for--”

“Go.”

Key let himself be forced toward the bed, almost stumbling with exhaustion. Surgery was always tiring, his complete attention focused on one tiny detail after another, but this was worse than usual. He slept fitfully, if he slept at all. It seemed every time he managed to catch the tiniest glimpse of sleep, he would think he heard the sound of alarms going off and jolt awake to silence, and Minho watching him.

He gave up after two hours, rising from the bed more tired than he had been. He must have managed to sleep a little, because Jonghyun had been dressed. Minho sighed, ruffling Key’s hair as he passed. Key ignored him, other than to shift a section back to where it belonged.

“I don’t know what games you’re playing, Key, but you’ve got to be careful.”

“I’m not playing any games,” Key said, bending over to check on Jonghyun. There was no fever, but the shivering had started again. “How long has he been shivering?”

“Less than five minutes,” Minho said. “I was about to come wake you.”

Key nodded absently.

“You can’t get attached, Key. Not with what we’re doing.”

“I’m not getting attached.”

“You were never this obsessed when you were fixing up any of our other friends. You know, the ones you’ve known the last six years of your life.”

Key ignored him, his eyebrows furrowing as the shaking got worse. It wasn’t seizures, just very severe shaking, as though he were freezing. He’d never seen anything like it before, and he really didn’t like not knowing what was happening.

“Key, what’s--”

Right as he spoke, the warnings went off again. Key had no choice but to reach for another stim shot. Jonghyun’s body convulsed again, this time his mouth opened in a silent, pained cry. He fell back to the bed, his body shaking with the last vestiges of the pain.

“That’s what I was talking about,” Key said, rubbing his hand over Jonghyun’s bare arm. He turned, just a little, toward the source of the comfort. “It’s happened once before, and I’m practicing medicine like a backwoods Rim doctor, because I don’t have what I need!”

Minho shushed him. “It’s going to be okay.”

“How long do you think they’re going to let us stay here if I can’t save him, Minho? I don’t think being Joon’s friend is going to save us if he dies. You have a job to do.”

“We’ve done our part. It’s on them now.”

Key fell silent, his hand still moving slowly along Jonghyun’s arm. He heard Minho sigh, but then he pressed his hand to Key’s shoulder. “Remember to take care of yourself.”

Then he was gone and Key was again alone with Jonghyun, who was flitting between sleeping and unconscious. Key knew he should have backed off, waited at the other bed, or finished cleaning up after the surgery, but he couldn’t do it. He sat right at Jonghyun’s side, where his family should have been. If nothing else, he provided a little bit of comfort.

It was another couple of hours, Key had stopped counting, when the door opened again. This time Onew stepped through. He went to the other side of the bed, taking Jonghyun’s hand in his. Key retreated to the counter, finishing sterilizing the instruments and putting things back in order.

“Has he said anything?” Onew asked, Jonghyun’s hand still in his.

“Just a name. Taecyeon, I think.”

Onew nodded as though he weren’t surprised. His face was pensive, and Key was dying to know what he was thinking, but he didn’t ask.

“How’s he doing?”

“He’s alive,” Key said. “For now, that’s all I can say. He’s fighting hard, but I don’t know if it’s going to be enough.”

“What do you need to know?”

“Time,” Key said. “Anything else would require going to an Alliance hospital, and I think probably he would rather we not do that.”

“Yeah.” Onew’s lips twisted. “Even if we got him in and out safely, he would never forgive me if I did that.”

“I need to tell you… I may not be able to save him. I’m doing everything I can, but he’s so badly hurt. I’m using stim shots just to keep him alive. I have no way of knowing what that’s even doing to him.”

“Just keep him alive as long as you can, and please don’t tell that to Taemin. Just tell him you’re doing everything you can.”

Key looked at him, but Onew looked perfectly serious. He nodded, a strange sound from the machines drawing his eyes back. Onew backed out of the room, but Key ignored him, his attention focused completely on Jonghyun.

“You don’t get to do this again, Jonghyun. Do not do this.”

He scanned through Jonghyun’s vitals, humming to himself as he did so. He didn’t even realize he’d begun singing, familiar syllables rolling from his lips as he prayed, running through every little trick he’d ever learned or imagined or invented just to keep his heart beating a little longer.

He did that for two days, using stim shots whenever those tricks failed. He stopped doing anything but sitting at Jonghyun’s side, sleeping in a chair pulled right near the bed. Those first three or four days, Key sang until his voice gave out. He knew he shouldn’t have.

Taemin came then. Key had seen him lurking outside the infirmary, but he never stepped inside. When he did, he looked as though he didn’t know what he was supposed to do, or if he was allowed to be there. Key, despite his exhaustion, smiled and gestured Taemin closer.

“You can come in.”

Taemin shuffled a few steps closer. “Why isn’t he awake yet?”

“I don’t know,” Key said, beckoning again. Taemin made it to his side, looking down at Jonghyun as though he were afraid. “I know he looks bad right now, but he’s alive. See? Those lines there. That’s his heartbeat and you can see him breathing.”

“What are those numbers?”

“That’s his blood pressure. He’s right where he should be, perfectly healthy. The next one is his oxygen saturation level, also right where it needs to be. All of those are just fine. Even his temperature is good.”

“Minho said there was something wrong with him.”

_Damn it, Minho._

“I’m doing what I can for him, Taemin. If I have my way, and I always do, he’s going to be just fine very soon.”

Taemin sighed, flicking a lock of hair off his forehead. “I know what the captain told you. I’m not a kid. I can hear what’s wrong with him.”

“Truth is, I don’t know. He’s not responding the way he should be. By now he should be awake, or making signs that he will wake up soon.”

“Can I touch him?”

“Of course you can,” Key said. “Just be careful of his wound. He should still be able to hear you while he’s unconscious, if you want to talk to him. It helps, sometimes, to hear someone they care about.”

Key stepped back to give them their privacy as Taemin took another couple of steps toward Jonghyun. He reached down to take his hand, but pulled away as soon as he did, eyes flitting back up toward Key.

“His hand is so cold.”

“That’s normal,” Key promised. “His body is focusing on healing, and the blood is going where it’s needed. His extremities don’t need it, so his hands can sometimes be cooler than the rest of him.”

Taemin managed to take Jonghyun’s hand this time, holding it as though he were afraid to hurt him more. He didn’t stay long, looking extremely uncomfortable.

“I don’t like seeing him like this,” Taemin explained, backing away.

“That’s okay, Taemin. When I worked in the hospital, I saw a lot of people who couldn’t even come in to the hospital room. He knows you’re worried about him. It’s okay.”

“He won’t be mad?”

“Not at all. How about I tell you when he wakes up, and you can come then?”

A relieved smile washed over Taemin’s features. “Really?”

“Yeah. Go ahead. You’ll be the first person I tell.”

The next day, Minho forced his way into the infirmary as a semi-constant presence. He was the one who made Key eat, shoving him away from the bed and watching until he swallowed enough of the food for Minho to be satisfied. He forced Key to sleep, even if it was restlessly and uncomfortably on the hospital bed just a few feet from where Jonghyun slept.

It took Key five days to get to a point where he felt comfortable leaving Jonghyun unattended for more than a few minutes at a time. By the sixth day, Jonghyun was stable enough to leave him for several hours, even if Key never did leave him for more than the few minutes it took to get another treatment set up.

Jonghyun still crashed occasionally, and Key never knew why. He would be fine, everything would be strong and steady, but all Key would get was a warning blip or two from the monitors and Jonghyun’s heart would just stop. That was one reason he never left for more than a few minutes. The second reason, probably the more important, accurate reason, was that Key just didn’t want to. He didn’t want Jonghyun to wake up alone. Honestly, he didn’t want Jonghyun to wake up to anyone that wasn’t him. It was irrational and unfair and Key really didn’t give a damn, so he spent almost all of his time sitting at Jonghyun’s bedside.

\---

_Jonghyun was falling against Taecyeon, feeling his strong arms enfold him, exactly as he had done a thousand other times. The pain in his body cooled as soon as their skin touched. He was real and solid and Jonghyun wanted to cry._

_“Hey, there,” Taecyeon said, the sound of his voice bringing tears to Jonghyun’s eyes. “Don’t cry, beloved. I’m here now.”_

_“I missed you so much,” Jonghyun said, inhaling deeply, trying to find the scent he remembered. It was there, but it was faint, as though he were dreaming. As though he were forgetting._

_“I missed you too.”_

_They stood there until Jonghyun stopped crying, his hands clenched in the back of Taecyeon’s shirt._

_“Look at you,” Taecyeon said when they stepped apart, tilting Jonghyun’s face up. “Just as beautiful as always. Your hair’s shorter.”  
“Cut it a few weeks ago,” Jonghyun said, his hand coming up to touch the fringe. “Dyed it, too.”_

_“I like it.”_

_“You look the same,” Jonghyun said a little stupidly. “I mean… except for…” He pressed his palm to Taecyeon’s chest, where it had once been nothing more than a gaping hole, but was now undamaged, from what he could see beneath Taecyeon’s shirt._

_The smile faded from Taecyeon’s face and he brought his hand up to cover Jonghyun’s. “Jonghyun, you’re dying, my love. You have to help your doctor. You have to want him to save you.”_

_“I don’t care. I want to be with you!”_

_Taecyeon waited until Jonghyun had calmed down before he stepped close to him, enveloping him in his arms. “You can stay with me as long as you want.”_

_“I love you so much,” Jonghyun said, lifting his head to meet Taecyeon’s eyes._

_“I love you too,” Taecyeon promised, leaning down and kissing him gently. It was the same as Jonghyun remembered when they kissed in the calm and quiet of space, without anywhere to be or anything to do._

_He had Taecyeon back._

_Jonghyun didn’t know how long he stayed with Taecyeon in that strange white nothingness. He didn’t even know what they did most of the time, because when he thought back, it seemed as though they spent most of it walking and walking and walking. He could only assume they were moving, with no buildings or trees or stars to mark their steps._

_He did know that sometimes he could feel his heart beating so fast that he thought it was going to explode. That was when the pain spread through his body again. Even Taecyeon’s hands couldn’t soothe it away. It would fade eventually, but he always heard soft singing then, words he couldn’t understand._

_Taecyeon gave him concerned looks when he asked if he could hear the singing. He said no, and they walked on. Eventually, despite his determination otherwise, he started getting restless. Something was wrong. Taecyeon was right, Taecyeon was perfect, but there was nothing else. There was no warmth, no cold, no breeze. Sometimes he felt as though he couldn’t breathe here where there was nothing._

_Taecyeon knew. He knew it before Jonghyun did, watching him with something akin to hope as Jonghyun demanded they walk more and further and faster, as though that would bring them somewhere. It never did. They walked until Jonghyun could go no further, his feet stopping as though something held them in place. Taecyeon made it only a step past him before he turned around._

_“I can’t do this,” Jonghyun whispered, feeling his heart break all over again. “I can’t stay here.”_

_“I know,” Taecyeon said, coming back to his side. “I’ll be waiting when you’re ready.”_

_“What am I supposed to do?”_

_Taecyeon shrugged. “You go back.”_

_“I can’t. I don’t know how.”_

_“You have to let me go,” Taecyeon said. “Once you can do that, you can go back.”_

_Jonghyun didn’t know when he had fallen to his knees, but Taecyeon was kneeling next to him, pressing gentle kisses to his cheeks and forehead._

_“I won’t do it.”_

_“Your doctor is trying to save your life, beloved. Go back to him.”_

_“What if I die? What if I go with you?”_

_“I don’t want you to die just to be with me,” Taecyeon snapped. “Knowing you’re alive means more to me than having you here. Go to your doctor.”_

_“Please don’t make me.”_

_“I never could make you do anything,” Taecyeon said, a faint smile warming his features, “even when I was your commanding officer. Jonghyun, I’m asking you to live for me because I’m so selfish, asking you to live without me. I don’t want to know that you’ve died. It’s not so bad here, but it’s so much better out there.”_

_Jonghyun stared at Taecyeon until his eyes hurt and he had to blink. “Okay.”_

_The smile that Taecyeon gave him almost made pain of losing him a second time worth it. “I love you, Jonghyun. Forever.”_


	3. Chapter 3

Jonghyun’s eyes opened. Someone was holding his hand and for a moment he thought it was Taecyeon, but the hand was too soft and too small. He felt empty.

“Jonghyun?”

“I want Taecyeon.” Jonghyun’s voice sounded broken to his own ears. It took him a second to even understand what he’d asked for and then the hollowness was back. Taecyeon was gone and Jonghyun could have had him, if he’d just stayed there.

The other person was silent, but his hand stayed holding Jonghyun’s. “I’m sorry.”

“What do you care?” Jonghyun asked, pulling his hand free and going to push himself up. Pain flared along his side and he dropped back to the bed, crying out.

Key lifted the hem of Jonghyun’s shirt, one that was not bloodstained, and Jonghyun felt cool fingers pressing against the pain. Strangely, it felt better.

“Your stitches are still healing. Be careful not to tear them.”

“How long was I out?”

“A couple days,” Key said evasively. Jonghyun looked at him closely for the first time. He looked exhausted, pale with dark circles beneath his blood-shot eyes; there was the slightest tremor in his hands.

“Did you stay here the whole time?”

“You kept trying to die on me,” Key accused. “It wasn’t even until yesterday that you gave that one up. _I_ could have killed you with number of stim shots I had to give you!”

Jonghyun pressed his hand to his chest. It began to make sense, the times it felt like his heart was going to beat out of his chest, the burning pain coming back. Key went to turn away, but Jonghyun caught his wrist. “Were you singing?”

Key hesitated just long enough for Jonghyun to notice the pause. “Praying.”

“Praying?” Jonghyun echoed. “Who were you praying for?”

“You.”

“Why?”

“Are doctors not allowed to pray?” Key countered, stepping away to dig through the drawers.

“You’re a Laiko, aren’t you?”

Key sighed, coming back to the edge of the bed and handing a cup out to Jonghyun. “Yes, I am. Is that a problem?”

“Predicable,” Jonghyun said, sniffing at the cup. “You people from the Core. Are you a Splice, too? Singers usually are.”

“No,” Key said, his voice a little sharp. Jonghyun supposed he’d be touchy if people insinuated his singing was given by scientists rather than natural. “Minho is a gene-splice though, one of the last before the Alliance outlawed it.”

“Don’t you all do that anyway?”

“Some people do,” he said, sitting back in the chair at Jonghyun’s side. “But they’re idiots. If something goes wrong, there’s no care for the kids anymore. A lot of parents think it’s not worth the risk.”

“Oh.”

“So, tell me about this Taecyeon,” Key said.

Jonghyun flinched. “What?”

“You kept saying his name. I’m curious.”

“Yeah, well, don’t be.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Husband,” Jonghyun finally snapped. “Everything but legally. We had a friend of his family perform the ceremony on Hera, where he was born. We were both fugitives, so we couldn’t exactly sign a marriage certificate and ship it to Sihnon. He’s dead. You’re sleeping in his bed.”

He saw the shock on Key’s face. “I’m sorry. I mean, I knew someone had… I didn’t know who he was.”

Jonghyun had taken a few sips of the liquid protein, but the conversation had made him lose his appetite. Key seemed to understand, taking the cup from his hands.

Just then, the door burst open and Taemin flew through. “Jonghyun!”

Jonghyun smiled. “Hey, little one.”

“Stop calling me little,” Taemin said, but he strode to Jonghyun’s side and gave him a tight hug, careful of wound on his side.

“How did you even know?” Key demanded. “He’s only been up for four minutes.”

“Taemin knows everything that happens on this ship.”

“I heard,” Taemin said, tapping his temple and taking Key’s abandoned seat, petting Jonghyun’s hair. He felt rather like somebody’s pet. “Is he okay?”

“He’ll be fine,” Key said. “The stitches will take a little while to heal, but he should be up in about a week.”

“Wait, a week?” Jonghyun demanded, pushing himself up again. Exactly as had happened before, pain tore through his body and he made a pathetic whimpering noise, falling back. He heard Key sigh and then gentle hands were checking the stitches beneath the bandaging.

“If you keep doing this, it’ll be significantly longer than that. You’re lucky you didn’t die. The shot could have killed you, and probably would have if--”

“Why are you still on _Juliette_?” Jonghyun interrupted.

Taemin and Key exchanged significant looks.

“I’ll tell him,” Taemin said. Key nodded, having satisfied himself that Jonghyun hadn’t pulled any of the stitches, and made his way out the door. “Minho saved your life.”

“He’s a gene-splice.”

Taemin shrugged. “I  know.”

“Weren’t we going to leave them on Koschei?”

“They would have been arrested and, if the Alliance found out what they were up to, probably killed.”

“So we’re going to get killed with them?”

“We’ve already been ID’ed,” Taemin said, shrugging. “It doesn’t matter much.”

Jonghyun sighed and rubbed at his face. “Help me up.”

“No.”

“Taemin, help me up or I’m doing it on my own. I need to see Onew.”

“I’ll get him to come down here. You can’t get up yet.”

“I feel fine,” Jonghyun argued. He was lying. Whatever Key had given him as a painkiller was already wearing off, the pain in his side starting up again as a dull, constant throb.

“I’ll call Key back if you keep trying. This is the first time he’s been out of here since Minho carried you in.”

Jonghyun rubbed his hands over his face. “What’s going on?”

“We’re on our way to Haven. We took a few hits on our way out of atmo, and we need to set down before we can get any repairs. Onew got word that we can get a new ident there, and I’ve sent a message to a friend who can get me the parts we need.”

“How long until we get there?”

“About two weeks.”

“That’s over twice as long as usual.”

“I’m working on it,” Taemin grumbled, crossing his arms. “Between Minho and I, we’ve gotten it from three weeks to two, so stop complaining.”

That piqued Jonghyun’s interest. He tried sitting forward again and swore with another spasm of pain, this one stronger than any of the previous ones.

“I leave you alone for three minutes!” Key’s voice snapped as he slammed through the door. He pulled Jonghyun’s hand away from the injury. “I have never had a patient so _troublesome_ as you are!”

“Excuse me, I’m not used to being bedridden!”

“You’ve already torn some of your stitches. Taemin, come back in a few minutes.”

“You don’t get to kick him out--”

Key rounded on him. “First, I am your doctor, I can kick whomever I _want_ out of here. Second, he can stay if you want him to watch me sew you up again.”

“I’ll go,” Taemin said, standing quickly. “I need to get back to Minho anyway.”

“Taemin, you don’t need to go.”

Taemin sent him a nervous smile. “No, I-I’ve seen the…” he gestured toward Jonghyun’s side, “already. It was… I don’t need to see it again.”

Jonghyun remembered, in a vague way, Taemin’s hand pushing against his side, trying to trap the skin closed as they ran. “Hey, ‘Minnie?”

“Huh?”

“Thanks, kiddo.”

Taemin didn’t even give him his usual, ‘don’t call me a kid!’ before he hurried out the door, turning back toward the engines, his step light.

“All right,” Key began, his hands starting to unbutton Jonghyun’s shirt. Jonghyun batted his hands away.

“What are you doing?”

Key just took his wrists in one hand and held them aside, still working at the buttons with one hand. “Getting your shirt off so you don’t bleed on it and ruin another one. I know you don’t think much of the Core Planets, but doctors there, as a general rule, tend not to molest their patients, so calm down.”

The most disconcerting thing about all of this was that Key managed to hold both of Jonghyun’s arms out of the way with only one of his. Jonghyun knew Key had to have some muscle, but there was no way someone with his frame should have been able to hold him down with that much ease. In fact, the only person on _Juliette_ who may have been able to keep him from getting up should have been Minho, and even he shouldn’t have had as easy of a time. As soon as he realized that, Jonghyun stopped struggling.

Key didn’t seem to notice for a second, but when he did, he released Jonghyun’s arms and gave him a concerned look. He slid an arm behind Jonghyun’s shoulders, leaning him forward to pull the shirt free. He murmured a soft apology when Jonghyun swore.

“What’s wrong?” Key asked, once he’d freed the garment and hung it up in the small closet built into the wall.

Jonghyun toyed with telling him it was nothing, but Key was watching him with the calm doctor-look and he sighed.

“Why am I so weak?”

“You lost a lot of blood. For a long time, I really thought you wouldn’t make it.” He turned away, doing something to the sterilization thingamajig that Jonghyun had never bothered to learn the proper name of. He didn’t start speaking again until he took the chair at Jonghyun’s side, peeling the edges of the bandage away with careful hands. “You’re going to be weak for a while. That’s another reason you can’t get out of bed. Even if you wouldn’t tear your stitches, I don’t think you’d be able to stand on your own.”

“How long?”

“I think you should be able to support yourself before the end of the week. Anything more strenuous will take longer. There we go.” He had pulled the bandage free. Jonghyun could see his own blood staining it right red before Key folded it and tossed it into the garbage near them. There was a soft hissing sound as it was sucked into the central garbage hold. He looked at Jonghyun, waiting until their eyes met. “I can’t give you a localized anesthetic with the general painkiller you’re on, so this is going to hurt a little bit.”

Jonghyun nodded. Even so, when the needle first slid beneath his skin, he made a soft sound of pain.

“I’m sorry,” Key whispered, tying off the first stitch. “There’s ten more. Your skin is already irritated and there’s a slight infection, so if you need me to stop, let me know.”

He made it through six before a sharp tug of the thread left him shaking. Key stopped immediately, reaching up to stroke Jonghyun’s hair. Jonghyun didn’t even have the energy to fight him off.

“Ssh, it’s okay. We’re almost done. We’re over half way there.”

“I just need a minute.”

Key nodded, his hand had stopped moving and it was just resting in Jonghyun’s hair. Jonghyun waited until the shaking had subsided and he took a deep breath, nodding for Key to continue. The last five were easier than the first six. When he finished, Key spread some wonderful, cooling paste across the wound and covered it with another bandage.

“There. Done.”

“I don’t get you,” Jonghyun said after a moment.

“Hm?” Key asked. “What don’t you get about me?”

“You’re kind of a bitch and then suddenly you’re all sweet-nothings and stuff.”

Key laughed, a strangely delighted sound that echoed around the room. “I’m more than willing to badger a patient who is going to end up killing themselves because they won’t listen to their doctor, but nobody wants to be bitched at when they’re already in pain.

“Jonghyun, I became a doctor because that’s what was expected of me. I stayed a doctor because I’m one of the best. You hating me, that doesn’t matter. When you need a doctor, I’m going to be your doctor.”

“Taemin said you didn’t leave at all while I was out.”

“He’s exaggerating,” Key said, turning back toward the counter. It frustrated him. Normally Jonghyun would have followed him, blocking him in until Key spoke _to_ him. “I left sometimes. I’m giving you another dose of the painkiller. With as weak as you are, it’ll probably knock you out.”

“Shiny,” Jonghyun remarked dryly.

The rest of the week passed excruciatingly slowly. Taemin and Onew visited him daily, and from them he learned more of the reality of what had happened. He had died, technically, several times. Key had refused to leave the room, sleeping in the second bed, if he slept at all. Minho, on one of his visits, told him that he’d had to bring Key food and watch while he ate it.

Onew also told him that three days after Jonghyun had woken up, Key had moved out of _his_ room-- _“Taecyeon. It’s okay, you can say his name.”_ \--and had moved in with Minho. But, if Onew was to be believed, Minho wasn’t spending many of his nights in his room anyway. Jonghyun wanted badly to believe that meant he’d been sleeping with Key, but judging from the way all of Taemin’s stories seemed to start with “Minho and I,” that was not happening.

It was six days after he woke that Key walked into the infirmary with a bright smile on his face. “I think we should be able to get you walking today.”

Jonghyun was excited until he realized what that meant. He was strong enough to sit up on his own, as long as he took it slow. Getting to his feet, he discovered, was infinitely harder.

Key was patient, easing Jonghyun into a sitting position, an arm around his shoulder. It took them almost a half an hour to get him sitting and swing his legs over the edge of the bed. It already hurt more than it had since he’d woken up.

“I need to stop for a second.”

“All right,” Key said, but he kept his arm where it was, letting Jonghyun lean against him. “You’re doing good.”

“Fuck, this hurts.”

“It’s going to hurt, but it’s going to get better. Are you ready to try again?”

Jonghyun nodded. Key stood, slinging Jonghyun’s arm around his shoulders and eased him toward the edge of the bed.

“Your legs are going to be very weak when you first try. Lean on me.”

The first step off the bed went well. At the second one, his knees buckled, pain flaring up his side. Key caught him, his free arm coming around to pull him tight. Jonghyun had to catch Key’s shoulders to keep from slipping through his arms.

“It’s okay. You’re okay,” Key said, helping him back toward the bed. Jonghyun dropped down onto it, hard enough to send another spike of pain through him. “I’ll give you a minute to rest and then we can do it again.”

Every trial for the next day went exactly the same way, the pain progressing from a sharp ache to a burning, twisting pain. By the second day, he collapsed back onto the bed, breathing heavily.

“I can’t do it.”

Key stepped back, brushing a colored strand of hair off his forehead. “You’ve only been trying two days.”

Jonghyun didn’t say anything, pressing his hand against his side. Key sighed, pulling his hand away and checking the bandage. Apparently satisfied, he pulled the chair around to the edge of the bed and sat facing Jonghyun.

“Try twice more, then I’ll let you stop.”

Jonghyun glared at him. He hurt. Everywhere. Worse than that, he’d never not known how to walk once he’d learned, anyway. Key must have seen it on his face because the sharp look faded. He put his hand on Jonghyun’s forearm.

“It will come. Your injury tore up some of your abdominal muscles, which is why walking is so hard right now. It will take some time for them to strengthen again, but you’re healing quickly. Once more. For me?”

Jonghyun almost asked, “Why would I do anything _for_ you?” but he bit it back, nodding once. Key flashed him a bright smile and stood, holding out his arm.

At least standing was getting easier. He could do that mostly on his own. Key ducked beneath Jonghyun’s arm. Jonghyun managed first one step and then two before he collapsed into Key’s arms while trying for the third. Key managed to catch him, half-carrying him back toward the bed.

“There!” Key exclaimed, once Jonghyun was lying back on the bed. “You did it!”

As much as Jonghyun hated to admit it, Key had been right. That one step was what he needed to start walking again, slowly at first and gradually regaining the strength. By the time they reached Haven, he was capable of walking around the infirmary. They had no wheelchair on board, but Key had created a sort of sling that between he and Minho could get Jonghyun most places on the ship. They had brought him to the walkway above the cargo bay, which was where Onew was kindly reminding him that he couldn’t walk anywhere on his own.

“I’m coming with you.”

“You can’t even leave the infirmary without help.”

“You need me with you. Who else is going to watch your back?”

“Taemin and Minho are coming.”

Jonghyun sat forward. “Taemin has to get his parts and you know Minho’s going to go with him and that leaves _you_ alone.”

“Jonghyun, I’m going to be fine.”

“Onew--”

“If you come with me, you’re going to wind up getting hurt worse, and I can’t have that happen. You’re staying on ship and that’s final.”

“What are you, my captain?”

“ _Juliette_ is my boat and you’re on her, so yes. I am your captain, and you’re _staying here_. I’m not having you kill yourself because you’re incapable of staying within your limits.”

“I told Joon I would make sure you got home safe.”

“You’re not coming with, Jonghyun.”

Jonghyun shifted on the chair, wishing desperately he’d healed a little faster. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“When do you not have a bad feeling about something?”

“When does one of our plans go right?” Jonghyun countered. He felt the slight shuddering that signified the ship descending through the final layer of atmosphere. “Just please be careful.”

“We will be.”

Taemin’s voice came over the ship’s comm. “We’ve landed.”

Onew caught the mic over his head. “We’re in the cargo bay.”

Taemin and Minho appeared in the cargo bay a few moments later, hauling a container of lase. It was the only thing they had on the ship worth trading.

Jonghyun caught Minho’s wrist as he started to walk past. Minho looked down at him, head tilted in surprise.

“Make sure they stay safe. I don’t trust the miners here.”

“Do you trust anyone?” Minho asked.

“It’s not my job to trust people.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

And then they were gone, Minho and Taemin heading south and Onew heading north.

Throughout his mandatory stay in the infirmary, Jonghyun had discovered that although Key was the absolute embodiment of everything he hated about the Core, excess and color and _he_ was flashy and bright, he was actually good company. Most of the time, he was the only company Jonghyun had, but he was finding he preferred Key to the silence he had the rest of the time.

Key was leaning up against the railing, his back to the open ramp. They’d been chatting mindlessly for an hour when Taemin came back, the lase gone and a few apparently deceptively small pieces of machinery in his arms. Jonghyun was beginning to think the entire ship was made of hand-sized bits of metal.

“Where’s Minho?” Key asked.

“And Onew?”

Taemin shrugged. “Onew went off to meet with his contacts. He wasn’t back by the time we got to the meeting point, so Minho went to find him. He told us it could take a while. I wouldn’t worry yet.”

He disappeared into the back of the ship to install the parts they needed. He’d been gone for maybe ten minutes when they heard Minho’s voice shouting for Key. Key hopped up over the railing and dropped down to the cargo bay, stumbling only once as he ran toward the open door. Minho appeared, carrying Onew’s entirely too limp body in his arms.

“Is he breathing?” Key demanded, still a few steps too far away to tell.

“I think so,” Minho said. He paused long enough to slam his hand against the button to shut the door.

Key bent over Onew’s head. “He’s breathing. Take him to the infirmary.” He pulled down the comm. “Taemin, I need you in the cockpit. We have to get offplanet now.”

“I’m coming,” Taemin’s voice said.

“Come get me.”

“Jonghyun--”

“The only person who flies this thing better than me is Onew and you know it. I’m on the way.”

Taemin swore, but when he ran past he paused long enough to help Jonghyun to his feet. He felt sharp pain unlike any he’d felt in days, but he ignored it. They ran together, Taemin supporting most of Jonghyun’s weight, to the cockpit and Taemin helped him into the pilot’s chair. He took the chair Jonghyun usually sat in and began scanning through the various displays.

“We’ve got ships incoming,” Taemin announced. “ETA: two minutes-thirty.”

Jonghyun’s hands were already flicking through the sequence needed to get the ship off the ground. “What do they look like?”

“They’re atmo only,” Taemin said. He spun a dial and listened intently to something only he could hear. Jonghyun forgot sometimes that Taemin was one of the few Splices that had survived the procedure when he was already out of childhood, leading to an incredibly unique set of talents. “They’re scrambling their near-planet ships, but it doesn’t sound like they think we’ll get out. It’ll be four minutes before they get here.”

“We’ll be long gone.” They were already lifting off the ground, and this time Jonghyun could faintly hear voices, but he couldn’t understand them. They sounded dismayed. “How many repairs did you get done?”

“Enough to get us to the nearest planet in three hours.”

“How long will it take us to get to Aziel?”

Taemin looked up from the displays marking their altitude and vectors. Jonghyun could almost see the numbers running behind his eyes. “Four days. With Minho’s help, I can get it down to two once we pass atmo. If you don’t put _Juliette_ on autopilot, we can get there in twenty-two hours.”

“Do it.”

Taemin nodded, scrambling from his seat and sprinting back down the length of the ship. They had already cleared atmo and were leaving the planet behind. He could see the very first near-planets on the furthest edges of the ship’s sensors. They weren’t outfitted with artificial gravity or even CO2 scrubbers, so he dismissed them. Even if anyone on Haven wanted to send long-range ships after them, it wouldn’t much matter. They would be too far away for them to track with any accuracy.

Jonghyun heard footsteps behind him and turned. Minho was walking up, something clasped in his hand.

“Is he okay?”

Minho took Taemin’s vacated seat and started typing, pulling up the ship’s identification. He slid the tiny chip into an empty space, waiting for something to appear on the display in front of him before he spoke.

“Key doesn’t know. He’s unconscious, but breathing. He thinks it was a concussion and he’s trying to find out how bad it was. You have the right equipment, it’s just taking him a little time to set it up properly. He was beaten pretty bad.” Minho’s lips twisted into something that might have been a smile. “He got the new ident though.”

“Well _that’s_ good,” Jonghyun said, the sarcasm thick in his voice.

They lapsed into silence, with the exception of the sound of Minho’s typing. His fingers were moving faster than Jonghyun thought possible, although he supposed that was of his talents as a Splice.

“Taemin’s one too, you know.”

Minho spared him a quick glance. There was a strange, silver sheen to his eyes and Jonghyun almost thought he could see numbers scrolling there, but it faded when he blinked. He looked back down. “What?”

“A Splice. It was a shitty job and he was too old, but it’s the reason he’s so good at what he does. They were trying to make him like you are.”

“He survived that?” Minho asked. His voice was vaguely distracted.

“Obviously. I didn’t know him then, though.”

Minho grinned, but didn’t look up. There was a brief whirr in the cockpit and then he sat back, a satisfied smile on his face. “Done. The ident’s installed. They won’t even be able to tell this is a different ship. They did a good job.”

“We need to go back to Aziel,” Jonghyun said as Minho stood up. The other man nodded.

“I’m not surprised.”

“We can drop Onew off and then find you and Key somewhere else.”

Minho shook his head. “I think, unless you guys think otherwise, Key and I would like to stay on, at least for a little while. From the way it’s looking, you guys could use a decent doctor.”

Jonghyun looked up at him and then nodded. “Go help Taemin with the engines.”

“Give us a call if you need anything.”

He waited until he heard Minho leaving to pull up a video call and key in Joon’s location.

It took a few seconds before Joon’s face appeared, a broad smile on his face.

“Onew!” The smile faded immediately. “Where’s Onew?”

“Joon--”

“Jonghyun, where’s Jinki?”

Jonghyun flinched. It was one of their few rules that nobody used Onew’s real name over broadcast. They hardly even used it when they were in the private of _Juliette_. It kept it harder for people to find him. “There was an incident on Haven. I don’t know what happened, but he’s hurt bad.”

“Is he okay? Let me talk to him. I _told_ him to stay off Haven. It’s not safe there right now.”

Jonghyun watched the fear flash across Joon’s face and felt sick. “He’s unconscious. We’re coming to you. We should be there in about twenty-two hours.”

“What do you mean he’s unconscious? Who’s with him?”

“Key’s taking care of him. Listen, I can’t keep this line open very much longer or someone’s going to be able to hack it. I’ll call you as soon as I know something.”

“ _The second_ you know something.”

“I will. Stay by the comm.”

Joon nodded and the conversation closed. Jonghyun slumped back against the seat. He pressed his hand to the wound in his side and it came back damp with blood. He swore, but leaned over and pulled the first-aid kit from the cabinet near him. Most of the wound had already healed, but a few small sections of it had torn open again. It was dripping blood steadily, but not quickly.

He pulled out a wad of cotton and pressed it to the injury, hissing in pain. He tore off a few sections of the first-aid tape to secure it and popped a painkiller to dull the pain. It was going to be a long day.


	4. Chapter 4

Jonghyun didn’t hear anything from the infirmary and only one message from Taemin about fifteen hours into the flight, telling him that the repairs were made, if Jonghyun needed someone to come up there. Jonghyun refused. He’d already changed the bandage twice, and he thought it was probably going to need to be done again. He didn’t want to explain to Taemin what had happened, or to take Key away from Onew, who needed him more.

The only person he saw the entire twenty-two hours was Joon, who answered the one call Jonghyun made. He didn’t look like he’d slept either although he sounded moderately calmer.

“Is Onew okay?”

“I haven’t heard anything,” Jonghyun said, “but they would have told me if something changed. We’ll be there in about ten minutes. Are we cleared for landing?”

“You’re good to go.” Joon frowned, peering intently into the image. “Is the coloring off on your screen? Something looks… off.”

Jonghyun glanced toward the little box that held the picture Joon was seeing. His skin was flushed and his hands had been shaking for the last seven hours. He’d staved it off by taking more painkillers and some of the low-dose stim shots they kept for times like this. He decided to lie.

“Must be yours. I’m hitting atmo, so I’m going to lose you. We’ll be there soon.”

He closed out the conversation without waiting for an answer. He hit the panel for shipwide comm., digging out the last fresh bandage they had in the kit and replacing it as he spoke. “We’ll be landing in about seven minutes. Taemin, I need your help to get down there.”

“Already on our way.”

He had just touched down when Taemin and Minho appeared in the room, his sling-chair carried between them. They maneuvered him into it and Jonghyun did his best to pretend it didn’t hurt any worse than normal, but he caught Taemin watching him closely. Even Jonghyun’s attempt at a cocky smile didn’t seem to assuage his concern.

Key had already rolled the gurney from the infirmary to the cargo bay and was waiting for the bay doors to finish opening. Jonghyun could see Joon waiting just far enough away to avoid getting hit. He was pacing back and forth, rubbing his hands up and down his arms as though he were cold, even though it was already midday. He jumped over the lip of the door as soon as it got low enough for him to get over and stumbled to the bedside.

“Jinki!”

“He’s still unconscious,” Key said quietly, but Joon ignored him.

Joon took Onew’s face between his hands, looking at his pale face. “Jinki, I love you, babe. You can’t leave me like this.” His kissed Onew’s still lips and then his forehead, resting his in that position for a few moments. “Shouldn’t you be bringing him to some planet that can treat him?”

“There’s nowhere that can help him more than I did,” Key said. There was no hubris in his voice, just the quiet statement of fact. “Even if we took him to Londinium or Sihnon, the only difference they could provide there would be a temperature controlled room.”

“You said you’d bring him back safe,” Joon accused. He didn’t look away from Onew, but Jonghyun knew he was talking to him.

“I’m sorry,” Jonghyun said. His voice sounded pathetic, sadness and rough with extended pain. “I would have gone with him if I could have.”

Joon finally looked at him then. The anger that Jonghyun had seen in his profile vanished. “Jonghyun, what happened?”

Jonghyun shrugged, biting back a grimace. Both the painkiller and the stim shot were wearing off. The shaking in his hands, a side effect from both too much of the stimulant and exhaustion, had begun again. “Different fight. I wasn’t quick enough. I’m healing fine though.” Except he could feel warmth dripping down his side. “Can we get inside? I don’t want to be in sight much longer than I have to.”

Joon nodded. “There’s room for Onew in my guest room.”

They made an odd, depressing procession to Joon’s house, Key pushing Onew’s gurney and Joon in front, trying to ensure the smoothest ride possible. Taemin and Minho carried Jonghyun. He’d begun biting his lips closed to block any pained noises just about the time they’d gone down the first set of stairs. By now, he could taste the copper blood in his mouth.

They settled him in the living room and then went to help move the gurney through Joon’s house, which, while spacious for the Rims, was not at all suited for a gurney and an invalid. Jonghyun was so distracted by the throbbing, pulsing, seizing pain in his side that he didn’t even hear the footsteps drawing closer to him, until he heard a furious voice right in his ear.

“You’re a fucking _idiot_.”

Jonghyun jumped and that did it, triggering the pain so fiercely that he did cry out. Key’s arms slipped beneath him and lifted him, laying him out on the couch and yanking his shirt halfway up his chest. It still surprised him how strong Key was.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me this was hurting again?”

“You were busy with Onew and--what the fuck are you doing? That _hurts_!”

Key’s hands were rough, almost violent, as he pulled the haphazard bandage from Jonghyun’s side. “Please tell me you weren’t treating this with painkillers.”

“And stim shots,” Jonghyun offered.

Key looked like he wanted to hit him. “You could have killed yourself! Do you know what those stim shots _do_ to you? Jonghyun, they _increase your blood flow._ You didn’t think to at least tell me that you haven’t stopped bleeding in, what, three hours?”

Jonghyun ducked his head. “On and off for twenty-three hours.”

“I could have left Onew long enough to take care of this,” Key hissed. “I swear, I would try to beat it into you myself if I thought it would help one damn bit!”

He disappeared into the guest room and then came back, carrying a bag that he dropped on the floor next to the couch. Jonghyun had never seen him so livid.

“What are you not understanding about this?” Key demanded after a minute of digging in his bag. He was so angry that he hadn’t even managed to pull anything out. “If you weren’t you, I wouldn’t even be letting you try walking yet. This is a dangerous injury, Jonghyun, it could still kill you.”

“No one conscious on that ship could fly _Juliette_ as well as I could.”

“An extra hour, an extra _day_ isn’t worth your life!” Key took a deep, steadying breath, his eyes closing. When he opened them again, he seemed calmer. He was gentle this time when he reached for the wound. “The infection is setting in again. I’m going to give you something that will knock you out for a few hours. It’ll give the antibiotics I do have a chance to work on you. I don’t think I’ll have to stitch it up again and the skin is so lacerated, I would rather not, if I don’t have to. Jonghyun, this does mean you won’t be able to walk for a while.”

Jonghyun could have argued, but he decided to give in partially to save himself from another lecture and partially because Key looked as though he needed Jonghyun to not fight him on this one thing. He just nodded. Key pressed the needle to the inside of Jonghyun’s arm.  
  
“You’ll feel better when you wake up, Jjong.”

\---

Joon was holed up in his guest room with the still-unconscious Onew. Taemin had taken up semi-permanent residence on the couch at Jonghyun’s head. Key was nowhere in sight. From what Minho could gather, as soon as he had finished patching up Jonghyun’s wound, Key had gone outside. Minho knew where he’d gone.

Key had grown up on Sihnon and trees there tended to be scarce. People owned trees on private, walled lands. Even Key’s family, rich enough to send him to the best medical schools on the Core, weren’t rich enough to buy even one. Whenever they were on a planet with trees, Key never failed to find himself there.

Joon’s property held a small cluster of about nine trees and that was where Minho found Key. He was sitting with his back to one of the largest trees, staring blankly toward the setting sun. Minho sat beside him, but Key ignored him. He would talk when he was ready. They were about ten minutes from sunset when Key took the breath that signaled he was ready to speak.

“Remember what you told me?” Key asked.

“Don’t get attached.”

“I got attached.”

“Yeah.”

“He’s going to get himself killed.” Minho didn’t say anything and Key looked over at him. “You got attached. It’s going to break his heart if this all goes to shit.”

“Taemin doesn’t have a dead boyfriend hanging over him.”

“Husband. They were married. The frustrating thing is it sounds like he should have been able to be saved if they’d had a decent doctor on board. Theirs had died and none of them knew how to deal with a chest wound.”

“You are everything he hates,” Minho reminded him quietly.

“Believe me,” Key said dryly, “I know. He insults my hair daily.”

“But you haven’t changed it.”

“I’m not changing it for him. I’m not changing anything for him.” Key sighed. “The sun’s about to set and I haven’t done my devotions since we left.”

Minho stood, brushing off the seat of his pants. “Be safe out here. We’re still wanted.”

Key nodded and Minho could hear him start singing as he walked away, picking his way down the slight bluff upon which the trees grew. Minho had heard Key sing his devotions hundreds of times over the years, and had learned how to gauge Key by the song he’d chosen, even if they were in some language Minho had never even heard spoken. This one was new, but it made Minho sad just listening to it.  
  
Key had never really minded if Minho overheard, or even purposely listened, but he decided instead to return to Joon’s house. Taemin was sitting where he had been when Minho left. The only difference was that Taemin had begun stroking Jonghyun’s hair with gentle fingers. Even Minho could see the pain painted on the older man’s face and he was struck with an immense sense of pity. He knelt at the edge of the couch and dug through Key’s bag, finding one of the analgesic patches Key had stashed there. He pressed the patch to Jonghyun’s forearm, waiting until the blue faded beneath his skin, the pain on his face fading instantly, and then pulled the patch off.

“Thank you,” Taemin whispered.

“He’ll be okay. Key’s upset that he put himself in danger like that. He can’t always accept that sometimes it’s necessary.”

“Where is he?”

“Outside,” Minho said. “Would you like to go? There too, I mean. Or, not where Key is, but… outside?”

Minho badly wanted to go back about four seconds and catch that mess of words before they fell out of his mouth, but they had yet to figure out faster-than-light travel, much less time travel. Taemin was smiling, though. He nodded, sparing a glance toward Jonghyun. He looked to be sleeping peacefully, so Taemin stood carefully, lifting Jonghyun’s head from his lap and then settling it back down on a pillow.

Minho looped an arm around Taemin’s shoulders, which the younger man accepted, reaching up to play with Minho’s fingers.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” Minho said. “You’ll like it, I think.”

Taemin looked at him sideways, but smiled again and didn’t say anything else. It was the quiet sort of smile that always made Minho think Taemin knew something he didn’t. Minho took them a little way to one side to give Taemin the best view of the lake through the setting suns. It was worth the extra few minutes to see the look on Taemin’s face when they crested the hill, his fingers squeezing Minho’s.

“It’s beautiful.”

“You like it?”

Taemin nodded, taking a few steps closer to the edge of the lake. Minho followed him like the loyal dog he pretty much was wherever Taemin involved.

“It reminds me of home. We had lakes everywhere. It was warm where I grew up and we swam every day, my brother and I. We even pet the fish sometimes, when we could catch them.”

“You miss it there.”

Taemin shrugged self-consciously. “I had to leave. Everyone there knew I was a Splice, a poor one at that, and it just brought the Alliance watch down on us. The procedure was only barely legal, which meant if I did anything to get in trouble, the Alliance would come down hard on me and my family.

“We’re not a rebellion planet, but there are some pockets of it there. I had to go to get them to leave. They’ll stop looking after a while, assuming we’ve died from some genetic defect that they accidentally put there.”

“It doesn’t sound like you were a failed Slice, to hear Jonghyun talk about it.”

“He’s just amazed I can do anything with the engines. Most of what I have there is innate. The Splicing attempt came along when I was too old for it to be able to do much to me. I can decode by ear pretty easily, especially if they’re relying on computer scramblers, but that’s about it.”

“Do you know how incredible you would be for the rebels?” Minho asked. He hadn’t intended to say it, but even their so-called successful Splices took a few days to decipher computer scrambled messages. One of them could do it by ear, but she had been missing for a few weeks.

“So you are one of them,” Taemin observed. He’d stopped walking and was leaning against one of the boulders. “Well, that’s… shiny.”

Minho grimaced. “Could I be anything else?” he asked after a moment.

Taemin’s smile was a little bit bitter. “No, I suppose not. And Key?”  
  
“Officially? No, but he’s saved enough of us that if word ever got out, he’d be branded a traitor and arrested on sight, plus kicked out of whatever fancy medical groups he’s part of, and officially taken off his medical school’s list of alumni. It’s a sore point for him, but he knows it’ll happen eventually.”

“You would have won Jonghyun over a lot faster if you’d said something earlier.”

“We both have a healthy sense of self-preservation,” Minho said. He glanced over at Taemin. “And I got the feeling that if I said we were part of the rebellion, I wouldn’t have won you over quite as quickly.”

Taemin wouldn’t look at him. “My father,” he said. “I was born on Sihnon, but we moved to Shen Xiu when I was just a kid. I have vague memories of it. We lived in the Cultural Preservation Enclaves for a few years, one of the better ones, fortunately, but moved to Lu’Weng when I was older. After that, Shen Xiu. My mother, brother, and I did, anyway. My father was a politician, serving a planet he’d never stepped foot on.”

Minho didn’t know what to say, but Taemin kept speaking anyway.

“I’ve seen him in person three times since we left Sihnon. He stopped by for a day when my brother came of age, half a day when I came of age--because they were in the middle of a debate--, and for a few hours a week before they came to mess with my genetic makeup.”

“Oh.”

Taemin looked over at him. “I had a good life, don’t misunderstand. My father called us several times a week and we had plenty of money. My mother loved us both dearly and my brother and I got along as well as any brothers do.

“It makes things complicated. My father believes in what he’s doing, but I’ve seen what happens out here.” Taemin looked back out over the lake. “My brother is one of the rebels on Shen Xiu. It will break my father’s heart when they finally catch him, so I left. I wanted to keep him safe for as long as I could.”

“So where does that leave us?” Minho asked. “If you take up with me--” He ignored Taemin’s snort, “you’re as good as one of us.”

Taemin gave him a smile that looked entirely too impish to be innocent. “It leaves us standing at the edge of a lake.”

He took a few measured steps closer until he was close enough to snake his arms around Minho’s neck and pull him down to kiss him. Minho was a little surprised. Although they had been sleeping together more nights that not, Taemin rarely initiated contact when they weren’t in the privacy of his room. Truthfully, there wasn’t really anyone out here by the poor, dying fish.

“Let’s go swimming,” Taemin suggested, a bright smile on his face. “Can we?”

Minho glanced toward the horizon. They should have about an hour before it got too cold for the trek back to Joon’s house. He felt Taemin tugging at his arm and looked down at him.

“Please, hyung?”

As if anyone stood a chance against that. He kissed Taemin’s cheek. “We only have about fifteen minutes before it starts getting cold, so let’s hurry, okay?”

Taemin smiled again and, before Minho had time to form any coherent thoughts, had pulled off his shirt. He was tugging at Minho’s shirt, which Minho gladly relinquished. Taemin was already backing toward the lake until his heels hit the edge of the shoreline. He smiled again and turned to dive straight into the water as though he’d been doing it his entire life. Minho supposed he had, if he’d grown up on Shen Xiu. When Taemin finally emerged from the lake, water running in rivulets down his back, Minho stepped into the water behind him.

“What’s this?” he asked, pointing at a dark spot on Taemin’s pale back.

Taemin craned his neck, trying to see what Minho was seeing. “What?”

Minho dragged his finger across the dark spot. It smeared and he laughed, holding his finger out for Taemin to examine. Taemin turned, catching Minho’s wrist and staring at the dark smudge on his finger.

“How did you get grease on your back?”

Taemin blinked, realization dawning over his face. “Oh, I slept in the engine room last night.”

“Really?” Minho asked, drawing Taemin into his arms. “You came to bed.”

“I sleep better there sometimes,” Taemin explained, draping his arms around Minho’s waist, just below the water. “The noises are soothing. Especially with, you know, Jonghyun and Onew.”

Minho kissed his cheek. “They’ll be okay.”

The air was already chilling when they finally left the lake. Minho was shivering by the time they made it to Joon’s house. Taemin’s shirt had gotten wet during a brief water fight and Minho had given his over.

Joon had already lowered the shades for the night, keeping in the heat from the day, but they could still see light spilling out of every room. Minho held the door open for Taemin, glancing back over his shoulder out of habit, just to make sure there were no lights on the horizon coming for them. He’d barely managed to complete his look when he heard Taemin give a cry. His head snapped back around, ready to pull him back, but the sound finally registered and he looked for the cause of Taemin’s joy.

Onew was sitting up on the couch, Joon’s arms firmly around him. Jonghyun was sitting as well, having been moved to the other edge of the couch.

“You’re awake!” Taemin said, dropping to the couch at Onew’s side. Both Jonghyun and Onew grimaced faintly and Taemin made a quick, apologetic noise. Minho turned his attention to locking down Joon’s house.

A second pair of hands came to hold the door more tightly shut while Minho fixed the weather stripping in place.

“Good timing,” Key said. “It was going to get too cold soon. Speaking of, why is Taemin wearing _your_ shirt, and you’re not wearing one at all? And why are your pants _drenched_?”

Minho snorted, snapping the last lock in place. “ _You_ need to get some, if you’re asking me that question. He wanted to swim.”

Key sent him a completely unrepentant look as he walked back toward the commotion in the living room.

“What happened?” Taemin was asking Onew.

“I don’t remember,” Onew said. Joon’s hand tightened briefly on his knee and Onew put his hand on top. “I got the ident chip and I was on my way back to _Juliette_ and then… I was here, with Joon.”

“There’s a reason I told you not to go to Haven,” Joon said. “It’s not safe for offworlders with all the trouble over the Alliance there.”

“We needed the ident,” Onew murmured, squeezing Joon’s fingers, “and I’m fine.”

“You might not have been.”

“Joon.”

He sighed but only turned his hand over, lacing his fingers together with Onew’s. Minho could see that his knuckles were white, but if his grip hurt, Onew didn’t say anything.

\---

“I want you to try to get some more sleep,” Key said, seeing some of the signs of exhaustion on Onew’s face that he doubted he even felt.

“All I’ve done the past two days is sleep.”

“That wasn’t a restful sleep.” _And I need to confront Jonghyun and it’s going to go much better if no one else is here_.

“I’ll come with you,” Joon said, standing and holding his hand out. Onew stood, a little stiffly, but he was already moving better.

There was a chorus of “Goodnight” and the two men vanished back into Joon’s room. Minho collected Taemin a second later, muttering something about sleeping in an engine room, and they headed to the tiny room at the back, leaving Jonghyun and Key alone in the living room.

Jonghyun was watching him warily, but Key mentally steeled himself and set himself into doctor mode. Without saying anything, he helped ease Jonghyun into a lying position, grimacing himself whenever Jonghyun made a pained sound. He shouldn’t have gotten so attached to Jonghyun. There was a reason doctors weren’t supposed to get attached. He still didn’t say anything as he lifted the hem of Jonghyun’s shirt to change the bandage, but Jonghyun had apparently had enough of the silence.

“Why are you so angry?”

“I’m not angry.”

Jonghyun caught his arm as he went to pull a new bandage from his bag. His eyes were darker than usual, flicking between Key’s eyes. Key had to look back at the stained cloth in his hand. “I get that what I did was stupid, but my first priority is always to keep everyone on the ship safe. I did what I had to do. I did what I’m always going to do.”

“The antibiotics haven’t quite gotten all the infection yet, so you need to tell me if you feel worse at all.”

“Key.”

“At _all_ , Jonghyun. I don’t care if you think you’re just imagining it. I would rather nothing be wrong than for you to not think something was wrong and--”

“ _Key_.”

“What?”

“Would you listen to me?”

Key just sat back on his heels, trying to hide the frustration on his face. He just wanted to get this done and go. “I’m listening.”

“What are you doing?”

“Changing your bandage.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Key pressed the edges of the bandages down and peeled off the analgesic patch, the last of the blue faded beneath Jonghyun’s skin.

“What do you mean, then?”

“What do you want from me?”

“I want you to stop being an idiot,” Key said before he had a chance to bite the words back. “I want you to realize that if you can do something without getting yourself killed, _that’s_ the plan you should try first. I want you to know that you’re not immortal.”

“So you don’t want me to drop to my knees and profess my love for you?”

Key couldn’t help the shock that flitted across his face. “I’d like it if you could drop to your knees and then get back up off them _by yourself_ without looking like someone is stabbing you.”

Jonghyun pushed himself up into a sitting position, rubbing his hand over his face wearily. “This isn’t how I meant for this to go. I want to tell you that I like you. I do. You’re not like most of the people from the Core, but I promised Taecyeon that I would never replace him.”

“Why would I be replacing Taecyeon?”

“Key, I loved him. I still do. I can’t love two people at once.”

That was enough to send a shock through Key’s entire body. “You… what?”

“Nothing. Never mind.”

Key stood slowly, repacking his medical bag as he did. “Jonghyun, I think that Taecyeon probably wouldn’t want you to stay alone, just because you were afraid of replacing him.” He took a deep breath. “If your fever gets worse, if you have any fever dreams, you need to tell me as soon as you notice it. I’ll be out a couple of times during the night to check on you.”

Jonghyun looked like he was going to say something, but he let Key walk away. Minho was waiting in the large guest room when Key entered. He took one look at Key’s face and stood up, holding his arms out for a hug. Key walked to him and stood there limply, letting Minho hug him.

“It’ll be okay.”

“This is just so frustrating. I don’t care. I shouldn’t care.”

“You can’t help it.”

Key stepped back. “Go back to Taemin. I’ll be okay.”

He managed to fall asleep not too long later. Jonghyun was either asleep or made a good show of pretending he was every time Key came out to check on him. Regardless, the fever was fading, he hadn’t bled through his bandage, and he looked to be sleeping comfortably. He was already awake when Key came out in the morning and knelt at his side.

“How did you sleep?” Key asked, carefully peeling the bandage aside. The inflammation in the skin had gone down.

“Pretty well,” Jonghyun answered. He seemed content to let their conversation from the night before go by unmentioned.

“Any pain?” Jonghyun shook his head. “Any strange dreams?” He felt Jonghyun tense beneath his fingers, but he shook his head again. “Are you hungry?” Jonghyun gave him a strange look, but nodded slowly. “As long as you have an appetite, I’m not going to worry too much about it. If anything changes, let me know.”

“Okay.”

Jonghyun was surprisingly meek, but Key was willing to take what he could get. Joon was already in the kitchen, the smell of cooking food beginning to fill the room.

“How’s Onew?” Key asked, coming up to help him.

“Still sleeping,” Joon said. “He fell asleep almost as soon as he got to bed.”

“He’ll be a lot better today.”

“Thank you,” Joon said, looking over his shoulder. Key followed where he was looking. Jonghyun was distracted, his head tipped back to look at Taemin as he walked out of the guest room, Minho’s hand held in his. “For taking care of both of them. I mean, especially Onew, but those three, they need each other.”

“It’s my job,” Key said. He looked away before Jonghyun could catch him looking. “I do what I can.”

Joon exhaled sharply in what could have been a laugh, putting his hand on Key’s shoulder just briefly. “Yeah. We all do.”


	5. Chapter 5

Jonghyun had been forbidden from sitting, which meant he was stuck lying on the couch while everyone else situated themselves around him. Taemin occasionally found time to sit at his feet and keep him company while the rest bustled around. Key checked on him too many times, murmuring encouraging things about his health the entire time. It left Jonghyun restless, especially when Taemin and Minho went to “check on _Juliette_ ” and left no doubt in anyone’s mind what they would actually be doing on his ship. Onew’s ship. Whatever.

Honestly, he was happy for Taemin. There hadn’t been anybody on the ship he’d been interested in at first, Jonghyun hadn’t even been sure he’d been _capable_ of being interested in anyone, and then he was left with Onew, who was already in a _very_ monogamous relationship, and Jonghyun, who was in no position to be a lover. It also left him with a slightly bitter taste in his mouth. Minho was a data smuggler, even if they were now as implicated as he was. Data smugglers never lived long, and it would break Taemin’s heart when they finally caught him.

Key’s orders left him with a lot of time to think, which he really didn’t like. Not that he disliked thinking, necessarily, but he disliked what he thought about when he had nothing better to do than watch and categorize the interactions of the couples around him. Taemin and Minho were still in the early stage of their relationship with constant, unashamed touches. Onew and Joon had been together since shortly after Jonghyun had met them. Their interactions were a little more subtle, or a lot more subtle in the case of “checking on _Juliette_.” Between them, it was mostly quick glances and soft smiles. Sometimes Joon would catch Onew around the waist and kiss him before letting him go and going about his business almost before anyone knew what had happened.

It made Jonghyun miss Taecyeon more than anything. He’d been with Taecyeon ten years, longer even than Joon and Onew, and then suddenly, he just _wasn’t_ anymore. Somehow, even with the constant reminder that _Taecyeon was not there_ , Jonghyun’s eyes kept following Key as he moved around the house. He still didn’t know how he’d met Joon, but he seemed almost as comfortable there as Onew did. It was frustrating and Key had no fucking right to be there, constantly in front of him and constantly in his mind.

It took him the better part of two days to come to a few conclusions. First, he shouldn’t have said anything to Key. Key didn’t need to know what he’d sworn kneeling in a pool of hot blood by Taecyeon’s body in the middle of their kitchen. It had nothing to do with him, it never would have anything to do with him. Second, there was no way Key was going to be leaving, because Jonghyun wouldn’t be responsible for splitting up Minho and Taemin, even if any of the others would have backed kicking Key off the ship anyway. And third, he was a damned liar. He did everything he could to keep lying to himself and the only thing he was discovering was that he was a bad liar. A really, really bad liar. It was disheartening.

He’d finally come to that last conclusion about the time Key came in from outside, a layer of dust covering his face.

“I have something I think you’re going to like.”

“A new set of legs?” Jonghyun asked.

“Your legs are just fine,” Key said. He set an armful of logs into the stand by the door and brushed some of the woodchips off his clothes. He’d finally replaced his bright pinks and blues with greens and yellows, but even that wouldn’t make him look as though he belonged anywhere but on the Core.

“What, then?”

“I want to try getting you walking again. Joon has some crutches he’s willing to let you try, _if_ I can get you standing on your own.”

Jonghyun pushed himself to the edge of the couch. “I’m ready.”

Key smiled and Jonghyun refused to believe that it was the reason he smiled back. He was excited to get on his feet again. That was all.

Then Jonghyun’s smile faded. He remembered exactly how much it hurt to try walking again the first time. Key stood in front of him, holding out a hand.

“You’re gonna be okay, Jonghyun. It should hurt a lot less this time, but you’ve got to take it careful.”

Jonghyun took Key’s hand. The younger man stepped up to him and slipped an arm around Jonghyun’s ribs. Jonghyun slung his arm over Key’s shoulders and, after a momentary pause, tried to heave himself to his feet. The pain in his side flared again, but fortunately nowhere near as bad as it had been, even a few days earlier.

He balanced carefully on one foot, his right foot barely touching the ground. Stretching his foot to rest his foot fully on the ground hurt his side a good deal more. Key rubbed his hand down Jonghyun’s spine.

“Standing requires both feet.”

“It hurts,” Jonghyun hissed.

“I know it hurts, but it’s one little step at a time.”

Hesitantly he lowered his foot the rest of the way to the ground, biting back a groan as unused muscles shifted. Key’s hands firmed on Jonghyun’s back.

“Good. Very good, Jonghyun. All I want today is for you to stand on both feet on your own. How’s the pain? One to ten, you know the drill.”

“Fourteen?” Jonghyun guessed. He lifted his foot back off the ground, giving his screaming muscles some relief. He could _feel_ the sideways look Key was giving him. “Fuck, I don’t know. Seven.”

“Better than fourteen. Lean on me.”

Jonghyun’s pride very much wanted to refuse, but the pain in the still-weak muscles in his side made that a secondary concern. Key’s arms stayed tight around Jonghyun as he wavered.

“I’ve got you,” Key said. “It’s all right.”

“I need to sit down.”

“One more try and then you can sit.”

Jonghyun bit back a pained groan as he did as ordered. He managed to support himself without Key’s help for a few seconds before his knee buckled. Key caught him in time to slow his descent, but not enough to keep him from hitting the ground hard.

“Fuck!” Jonghyun cried, more out of frustration than pain, even though there was plenty of that.

“It’s okay,” Key said, helping him back to his feet and then easing him back on the couch. “The pain will get better in just a second. Let me grab--”

Jonghyun’s hand tightened around Key’s forearm. “No, wait.”

Key settled back at his side, his fingertips running over Jonghyun’s hair. “The painkiller will help in--”

“I don’t care,” Jonghyun hissed, the pain pulsing in his side. “Give me a minute.”

He leaned forward, his head bowed. Key put his arms around him. “I’m sorry, Jonghyun. I shouldn’t be pushing you this hard.”

Jonghyun swore he didn’t lean into Key’s arms just a little bit. If he did, it was because that direction hurt less. That was definitely why.

He only barely heard the sound of footsteps and then the door was opening and Taemin walked in. Jonghyun pulled away from Key so quickly that another wave of pain rolled through him. Key moved away, leaning down to dig in his bag for one of the patches.

Taemin raised his eyebrows in Jonghyun’s direction, but Jonghyun was distracted by the feeling of Key’s fingers pressing the patch to his shoulder and then the analgesic spread through his system and his eyes closed.

It took him more than three weeks to be able to walk on his own without crutches. It was still hard for him to move at anything more than a slow limp, but he was walking. It was enough for him until the night Taemin woke up screaming.

By the time he got to the door, Key was already there, checking his pupils and whatever other doctor-y things he did. Minho was petting Taemin’s hair while Taemin was talking in a frantic voice to Onew.

“It’s _them_ , I know it is!”

“Taemin, you don’t know that.”

“I do!”

“Would you like to explain what’s going on here?” Jonghyun asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Reavers.”

“You don’t _know_ that,” Onew protested.

“I know that sound,” Taemin said. He shoved Key’s hands away and stood. “If you could hear what I hear, you would know. Machinery never sounds like that unless it’s them.” He tapped the side of his head. “You don’t forget that sound.”

Onew made a frustrated sound, turning away. “It’s not Reavers. They never come this far in. Aziel isn’t even that far from the Core.”

“Are we safe out here?” Jonghyun asked, turning to Joon.

“I don’t know. If they attack the city, take what they want from there, yeah. If they decide that’s not enough, I’ve got defenses to stand against most people, but they won’t hold against them.”

“I’ve got to go,” Key said.

Jonghyun stepped in front of him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“If it is Reavers, and I see no reason why Taemin should be wrong about this, people will be hurt.”

“Reavers don’t leave behind enough to warrant ‘hurt,’ Key. They don’t leave much behind at all.”

“I’m a doctor. If someone is hurt and I can help them, it’s my responsibility to go.”

“At least wait until they’ve left the city,” Joon said, “if that’s where they go. If they attack here, we’re going to need help. Until then, I need you guys to help shore this place up. Jonghyun, Key, check the doors, front and back. Minho and Taemin, check the barriers on all the windows. Onew and I will check my weapons cache.”

Once they’d all followed Joon’s orders and then doused the lights, they all sat huddled in the living room. That was the worst part, as far as Jonghyun was concerned. Taemin was solidly wrapped in Minho’s arms on the couch; Joon was leaning in the doorway to the guest room and holding Onew tight. Jonghyun, perhaps against his better judgment, had let Key sit beside him and put his arm around the younger man’s shoulders. He was shaking. Jonghyun supposed they all were. Reavers were the stuff of nightmares and they all knew that if a shipload of them dropped on their heads, they didn’t stand a chance.

After a few minutes, Jonghyun could hear what Taemin had heard, the whining drone of Reaver engines. Key grabbed for his hand, drawing in a sharp breath. Jonghyun pressed his finger to the other man’s lips to quiet him. The ship got closer and Key’s hand on his got tighter.

The sun was beginning to rise, sunlight seeping through cracks and Jonghyun could see Key’s eyes, wide with terror. Jonghyun pulled Key in, tucking Key’s head against his shoulder. Taemin’s eyes were shut, his head pressed against Minho’s chest. When they’d first stepped into the living room, Onew’s back had been pressed to Joon’s front, but at some point, he had turned and Jonghyun could see the ragged rise and fall of his shoulders. Joon’s knuckles were white from gripping Onew’s shirt.

They sat like that forever, the uneven pulsing of the engines getting louder and louder overhead. As it got closer, they began to hear shrieks and wordless screams. Jonghyun’s head snapped up. He took Key’s hands in his and pressed them to his ears.

“Cover your ears. Don’t listen. Joon, find it!”

Joon had already released Onew, dragging him by the hand into his kitchen, scrabbling for the transmitter. The screams were getting louder, the sound making Jonghyun sick. Key started to pull one hand away from his ears, but Jonghyun pressed it back.

“You don’t want to hear this,” he promised, voice just loud enough for Key to hear. “Keep your ears covered. Joon, damn it!”

His voice was too loud in the sudden silence from the transmitter. It was lying, broken on the floor. Joon had wrapped his arms back around Onew, his hands stroking the back of his neck. Key’s hands slipped from his ears, down into his lap.

“What was that?” he whispered, looking up at Jonghyun. “Who was it?”

Jonghyun pulled him back in. “We don’t know. I think… I think it’s their victims. Some people think it’s the Reavers.”

The ship’s engines reached the peak of their crescendo. Jonghyun could see Joon eyeing the pile of weapons on the table. There weren’t many bullets, but they didn’t need many. He’d seen Joon loading them, just a couple in each. If the Reavers came in the door, the bullets weren’t for them anyway.

“Jonghyun,” Key whispered. Jonghyun pressed his finger to Key’s lips again.

The drone of the engines began to fade.

Jonghyun’s arms gradually eased around Key, until he’d released the younger man completely. Taemin was still visibly shaking.

“I need to go,” Key said, once the sound of the engines had faded and there was nothing left for them to hear.

“You can’t go alone.”

“ _You_ can’t come with me.”

“I’ll go,” Joon said. Onew moved to protest, but Joon quieted him with a hand to his cheek. “It’s my home. Stay here. If anything happens here, call me and we’ll come back as fast as we can.”

Onew nodded slowly, his eyes searching for something in Joon’s face. He must have found it because he wrapped his arms around Joon and held him for a second.

“Be careful.”

“We will. Key, let’s go. Grab your stuff.”

Jonghyun grabbed Key’s wrist as he went to sling the bag onto his back. Key looked down at him, his head tilted. Jonghyun held on just a second too long before he realized what he was doing and dropped Key’s hand. “Just be careful out there. If there’s a Reaver, you run, okay? Don’t try to fight it, just run.”

“Joon can protect me,” Key said, grinning briefly.

They were gone the entire day and Jonghyun was ready to start walking to the city himself. It was already getting dark, the sun casting long shadows inside the house. Onew was almost as restless as Jonghyun was, pacing back and forth long after Jonghyun’s still-weak muscles had given out. Onew had finally stopped pacing a few minutes before a knock sounded at the door.

Taemin’s head whipped up and they all looked at each other for a few seconds before Minho reminded them softly that Reavers didn’t knock. Onew jumped for the door. When he opened it, Joon stepped in, supporting Key with an arm around his waist. He was covered in blood.

“Key!”

Key looked wearily up at Jonghyun, stepping away from Joon. He frowned in confusion when he saw the expression on Jonghyun’s face and looked down at himself. “Oh. It’s not mine.”

“Don’t _do_ that.”

“Worried about me?” Key asked with the tiniest lilt of amusement.

“Yes!” Jonghyun definitely did not mean for the word to be so emphatic. It obviously surprised Key, because he looked back down at the blood staining his clothes and at the smear on Joon’s side.

“I’m just tired,” Key said. He did sound exhausted, physically and mentally. “None of it’s mine.”

Jonghyun stood up and held out his hand for Key to take. Key looked at him, his eyebrows furrowing, but he reached out hesitantly. When their hands touched, Jonghyun drew him in close and took Joon’s former position.

“Let’s get you some rest, then.”

Key gave him another confused look, but accepted the help. He looked like he needed either it or the comfort another person’s arms could provide. When Jonghyun turned back from closing the bedroom door, Key had climbed up on his bed and pulled his knees up to his chest.

“What happened out there?” Jonghyun asked, coming to sit at the edge of the bed.

“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Key whispered, his head bowed so that Jonghyun couldn’t see his face. “It was…”

“I know. I’ve seen what Reavers leave behind.” Jonghyun paused. “Are you… Key, are you crying?”

“Do you know how many people I worked on today?” Key asked. He brushed angrily at the tears on his cheeks. “Do you know how many I saved?”

Jonghyun could only shake his head.

“I worked on _thirty-two_ people. I looked over a good dozen more and knew I couldn’t do anything for them. I didn’t even give them anything to dull the pain, because I knew they wouldn’t survive long enough for it to take effect. I couldn’t save any of them. They all died.”

“What they leave behind, Key… They’re not human anymore. If they live…” Jonghyun swallowed, reaching to put his hand on Key’s shin. He still didn’t look up, so Jonghyun moved closer until they were side-by-side. “If they live, most of them aren’t worth saving anyway.”

Key finally, _finally_ looked up at him. He spoke very slowly and carefully. “Jonghyun, if you don’t want me to make this very, very complicated, I think you should leave now.”

Jonghyun shook his head. He wasn’t about to leave the one time he could be of help. He hadn’t even begun to formulate a thought after that when suddenly Key pushed toward him and then Key’s lips were pressing against his. Jonghyun should have pulled away, he should have done most everything but what he did do.

He didn’t pull away. He sat there, stunned. Key’s lips were surprisingly soft, insistent, and desperate. He didn’t push Key back. He reached out, hesitated, and then caught the back of Key’s head, fingers wrapping in the smooth, black hair.

Key made a soft sobbing sound. Jonghyun wasn’t sure if it was in response to the kiss or something else, but he knew he didn’t like the sound. He fixed it the only way he knew how. He leaned up, pushing closer and easing Key back onto the bed. He wasn’t thinking. He definitely wasn’t thinking.

“It’s okay,” Jonghyun whispered when he pulled back to breathe. He leaned down to kiss him again, gently urging Key to part his lips. He did and Jonghyun took that as his permission to deepen the kiss, just barely. He only slipped his tongue past Key’s lips, waiting for the other man to meet him halfway.

Key tipped his chin up hesitantly, so hesitantly. Jonghyun wanted to forget anything but the feeling of Key’s tongue against his, the heat rushing through his body and making his heart stutter, but he knew he couldn’t. He was coming to his senses, realizing exactly what he was doing. He eased back until he was pressing soft kisses to Key’s lips and face. Key had been crying; Jonghyun could taste the tears on his cheeks.

“What’s wrong?” Jonghyun asked.

“You’re right,” Key said, “about everything. I’m not meant to be out here. I’m a coddled doctor from the Core.”

Jonghyun shushed him, holding him close. “I cried off and on for three days after I saw a Reaver attack for the first time. Taecyeon cried, and he was the strongest person I ever knew. It’s okay. I know what you saw.”

“I’m sorry,” Key said, rubbing the remnants of tears off his cheeks. “I’m tired. I get ridiculous when I’m tired.”

“You’re not ridiculous,” Jonghyun said. “I get it. Believe me, I understand. What they leave behind is… It’s not wrong to react this way. Get some sleep and you’ll feel better tomorrow.”

He tried to stand up, but Key’s long fingers wound their way around his wrist and kept him from leaving. “I shouldn’t be asking this, not after…” Key swallowed, his eyes wide and dark. “Please don’t leave me.”

“I’ll let you get changed and I’ll come right back.”

“If you don’t… I mean, I understand if I shouldn’t have… Just send Minho in, if you don’t come back, okay?”

Jonghyun leaned in and kissed Key’s forehead. He shouldn’t have done it. He needed to figure out where this left him, what it had done to his promise to Taecyeon.

“I’ll be back. Two minutes.”

He was stupid. He was so fucking stupid. He _never_ should have done that. He shouldn’t have let Key kiss him, he shouldn’t have kissed him back. He shouldn’t have… What was his other option? He could have shoved him away, he could have gone when Key told him to, but he wasn’t that heartless.

“Is he okay?” Minho asked when Jonghyun stepped through the doorway.

Jonghyun nodded. “He’s okay. He’s just a little shaken.”

“I’m going to see him.”

Jonghyun caught Minho’s arm as he went to pass. “No.” Minho gave him a look that Jonghyun purposely did not translate. “You can see him in the morning. I’m… We’re kind of in the middle of something right now.”

Taemin’s eyebrows disappeared beneath his bangs. Jonghyun choked, gesturing frantically.

“No! Nothing like… Geez!”

Taemin just shrugged. “I mean, if you are _in the middle of something_ you probably shouldn’t leave him there alone for too long…”

“He’s fully clothed! What _happened_ to you?” Jonghyun demanded, grabbing his blanket off the end of the couch. “You used to be all sweet and innocent.”

He heard a quiet laugh from behind him. Onew was still connected to Joon, his arm slung low around the other man’s waist, but he pointed with his free hand to Minho. The data smuggler waved.

“I’m getting you a Companion, next time we head inward,” Jonghyun muttered. “Might teach you some manners.”

Taemin laughed and Jonghyun just sighed, letting himself back into Key’s room.

Key was still lying on the bed, but he’d changed into a loose pair of dark sleeping pants and a predictably bright t-shirt and curled into a ball with his back to the door. He stirred slightly when Jonghyun closed the door. “Minho?”

“It’s me.”

Key sat up, blinking at him. “I thought you weren’t going to come back.”

“I did consider it,” Jonghyun said, perching on the edge of the bed, “but, nope, I’m here.”

“I’m sorry,” Key said. “I’m so tired, I stop…” He gestured around his head with both hands.

Jonghyun laughed softly, nodding. “Get some sleep. I’ll sit here with you.”

“I don’t… I don’t want to dream about it.”

“You won’t.”

“I won’t?”

Jonghyun smirked. “I’m here.”

Key laughed once, covering his hand with his mouth. Jonghyun stood up and tugged the blankets aside, helping Key beneath them. He covered the younger man and then, on impulse, leaned down and kissed his forehead.

“I’ll be right in that chair until you fall asleep, okay?”

At some point, long after Key’s breathing had evened out, Jonghyun’s own eyes drifted closed. The next time Jonghyun woke up, it was morning again and his side was aching from lying in the uncomfortable position all night. He’d complained that Key had just wanted the bed for himself, but he was beginning to see why Key wanted him to lay as flat as he could.

He stood without making any obvious noises of pain, but Key stirred, rolling over slightly and looking at him. He blinked a few times, and then frowned.

“Jjong?” He sat up. “You’re still here?”

“I fell asleep.”

Key’s hair was tousled and half of it fell across his eye. His skin was still faintly flushed from the warmth of the blankets and his eyes were drowsy with sleep. He was beautiful, but Jonghyun snagged that thought and slammed it behind a full dozen mental barriers.

“How are you feeling?” Jonghyun asked, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. He reached out to flick a strand of colored hair out of Key’s eye.

“I’m okay.”

“Any dreams?”

“None.”

Jonghyun smiled. “See? I told you. No dreams while I’m here.”

There was a long silence. It was the kind of silence that, in any number of other circumstances would have led to both of them leaning forward. Jonghyun would have slipped his hand behind Key’s head, would have felt the thick, silken strands of hair there. Key’s head would have tipped up, his lips parting just a little as he waited for Jonghyun to close the space between them, and when he didn’t, or when he wasn’t fast enough, Key would have pushed forward and caught Jonghyun’s lips himself.

That couldn’t happen. Not now. The silence dragged on a little too long and finally Jonghyun stood up, his heart pounding.

“I-I’ll…” Jonghyun cleared his throat. “I’ll be in the other room.”

Key watched him, his eyes wide and dark and sad. “Okay.”

It seemed as though Jonghyun had just finished getting ready and eased himself back on the couch when the bedroom door opened and Key stepped through. The sleep had faded from his eyes and he was dressed as immaculately as ever, back in his shirt with the bright pink and blue highlights.

“Is no one else up yet?”

“We’re up a little early,” Jonghyun said, pointing to the clock on the wall. The faded orange numbers read just after six AM, planet time.

Key gave him a faint smile. “We didn’t do your physical therapy yesterday, and I doubt you did it while I was gone.” Jonghyun shrugged and Key just shook his head. “Ready to try again?”

Jonghyun pushed himself up from the couch, careful to hide the grimace of pain. Once Key turned back from pushing the small table aside, he looked Jonghyun over once. The physical therapy Key had diagnosed was primarily a lot of exercises to strengthen Jonghyun’s core muscles. Key swore there was nothing wrong with Jonghyun’s legs, especially now that he was standing and walking on his own again. He’d given some extremely complicated explanation about how these muscles were responsible for this movement and these muscles were responsible for that movement and if this other set of muscles were damaged, the second set would take over for a while, but… Jonghyun had stopped paying attention until Key’s hand had very suddenly and abruptly collided with the side of his head.

“Let’s start with sit-ups today,” Key said. “You did seven pretty easily the other day, so do you think you’re ready to try ten?”

Jonghyun’s side hurt just to think of doing more than one, but he nodded. “Sure.”

“All right. Go ahead.”

He managed about three before his side spasmed and he clamped his hand over the wound. Key was at his side, brushing his hand away and tugging his shirt up a second later.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine,” Jonghyun said, once he’d collected enough air in his lungs to form words. “I probably shouldn’t have taken yesterday off, is all.”

“Liar,” Key shot back. His hands were gentle, soothing the pain in ways that Jonghyun didn’t even understand. “Come on. Let’s get you up on your feet. What really happened?”

“I probably just slept on it funny,” Jonghyun said. “I’m okay.”

“You could have gone once I fell asleep,” Key said, helping Jonghyun back onto the couch. “Or just come to bed with me. I mean—Not… It’s a big bed.”

“Is everything okay?” Taemin’s voice asked, startling Jonghyun. He jumped a little and the tensing sent another little arc of pain through him. Key’s thumb ran absently along the inside of Jonghyun’s shoulder.

“He’s staying off his feet for today,” Key began. When Jonghyun made to protest, he just sent a dark look his way. “Just until I make sure you’re okay. Chances are you just strained some muscles sleeping like that, but with the technology I have with me right now, I have no way of knowing if you managed to tear something.”

\---

Minho had become remarkably adept at reading Key’s ever-changing moods. There was nothing in him that suggested anything dramatic had happened the previous night, even when Minho cornered him on the far side of Joon’s house. Minho knew something had happened, something small enough to have shaken Key just a little, but he refused to talk about it. He didn’t even respond when Minho suggested Jonghyun’s sudden confinement to the couch was in response to “strenuous exercise,” only fixing Minho with one of his _looks_ and saying, “Really, Minho” in the kind of voice that assured him that not only was he wrong, he was rather foolish for even suggesting it.

It was even hotter than usual outside and they had all been confined to the house, locking down the weather stripping to try to keep the worst of the heat outside. Joon had some temperature control, just enough to keep the house from being insufferably hot, but they were all splayed out on as many surfaces as they could find without touching each other. Jonghyun was on the couch and Taemin had somehow managed to worm his way up and was lying on his stomach on the back of the couch, arms folded beneath his head. Key had thrown himself onto the floor, proclaiming that heat rose and the floor would be the coolest. Joon sat at the kitchen table, least affected by the heat. Onew was sitting beside him, head down. Every so often, Joon dipped his fingers in the condensation around his drink and trailed it down the back of Onew’s neck.

Minho decided to sprawl out sideways on a chair, tapping his toes on Key’s back whenever he got too bored or his friend looked about ready to fall asleep. They had been there for the last few hours, through the worst heat of the day, when something jangled in the back of Joon’s house. He sat up, eyes intent on the door right as someone knocked.

“Expecting someone?” Onew asked.

Joon shook his head. “We need to get Jonghyun into the back room. Onew, I want you out of sight. Taemin can stay. You two can too, but you need to keep your backs to the door. Hurry.”

Onew was already moving, helping Jonghyun to his feet and into the small bedroom Taemin and Minho had been using. Taemin tumbled gracefully off the couch and landed on his feet, catching Minho’s arm and hauling him to his feet, claiming the chair he’d been sitting in. He and Key slid onto the couch just as Joon opened the door.

“Yes?” Joon asked. His voice was wary. He obviously didn’t know the person, and it made Minho’s back itch to not be able to turn around. Taemin’s face was still calm, even if Minho could see the tension in the rest of him.

“I’m told Minho is here.”

That sent a shock through all of them.

“I’m sorry, who?” Joon asked.

There was a brief hesitation. “Well, if you see him, tell him that it worked and he’s safe.”

Key stood, spinning toward the door. Cover effectively blown, Minho stood as well. Once he caught a glimpse of the person around Joon’s shoulder, he let out a breath.

“Changmin,” Minho said, stepping into view, “what do you mean, I’m safe?”

“You are here,” he said. “I was worried I’d missed you. I heard you were onplanet, but then there was the Reaver attack… Anyway, it worked. The data was exactly what we needed. We’ve sent… Can I come in?”

Joon stepped aside, looking through the door before he shut it.

“We’ve sent someone in. There’s going to be a pretty good explosion in just about an hour and hopefully we’ll have crippled the Alliance, at least on Sihnon. I don’t think our person on Londinium stands much of a chance, but if they manage to get through…”

“ _Who_ did you send?” Minho demanded, stepping closer. “Changmin--”

“Krystal and Amber,” Changmin said. When Minho’s eyes closed he added, “They know they’re not coming home.”

“You couldn’t think of a better way?”

“You threw them off when you left Aziel, but the Alliance was pretty intent on finding you. It was their idea. You’re more… Can I talk about this here?”

Minho gestured absently. It was far more important that he _knew what the fuck was going on_ than maintaining any secrecy here. “It’s fine.”

“You’re more important than they are anyway, and they both know it. Regardless, the data on you and Key is gone. As far as the Alliance is concerned, neither of you exist. We’ve cleared a handful of other people, but we have to go slow. If there are other names you need cleared,” Changmin sent a meaningful look in Taemin’s direction, “give them to me and I’ll get it done first.”

Minho slipped his arm around Taemin’s waist, drawing him in. “You and I are going to have a discussion one of these days.”

He was deliberately vague, but Changmin understood. “You were out of contact. It was the very plan you would have backed, and you know it.”

“That doesn’t mean we had to send those two. They are not expendable.”

“They are now,” Changmin said. “You’ve been gone for over two months, Minho. Things have changed. People have died, and you don’t even think to ask about them, here in your little haven with your new boyfriend--”

“Changmin, enough,” Key said, finally stepping in. Changmin recoiled a little, not willing to challenge Key on this. “That’s enough.”

“I’ve done my job,” Changmin said at last. “I’ll see you when you finally decide to come back to Highgate _where you belong_.”

Minho didn’t even know what to say when Changmin left. He stood there, staring at the door. Key reached up and put his hand on Minho’s shoulder.

“I know,” Key said.

“Krystal and Amber--”

“I know,” Key said again. “And from his reaction…”

“Probably Jaejoong.”

“Yeah. And who even knows who else.”

“Fuck,” Minho said, rubbing at his forehead. He hadn’t been prepared for this. “That leaves me.”

“You’ve got to go back to Highgate,” Key said. Minho could practically feel Taemin’s eyes on him, feel the questions he was asking.

“I’m not going back there right now,” Minho said, his hand tightening on Taemin’s side. “They can handle themselves without me. They know the plan.”

“What plan?”

That was Jonghyun’s voice, hard and just as suspicious as it had been the first time they met. Minho turned to face him, feeling Taemin pressing closer to him.

“There’s something we haven’t told you.”

They made an uncomfortable family gathering, sitting there in the middle of Joon’s living room. It was even more uncomfortable informing them all, especially Jonghyun who looked personally betrayed, that when Minho said he was “part of” the rebellion, he really meant that most of the rebellion answered to him. Now, with Krystal, Amber, and Jaejoong dead, or near enough as made no difference, _all_ of the rebellion answered to him, although if Changmin was to be believed, they were probably trying to replace him.

“I’ll need to return to Highgate at some point,” Minho said, “and remind them that there’s a reason I am where I am. I hate the politics of it, but there’s nothing else I can do.”

“What about you?” Jonghyun asked. He didn’t look at Key, but he was obviously talking to him.

“I’m exactly what I said I was. I’m a doctor from the Core. Officially, I have nothing to do with the rebellion. I’m just a pass for locked doors.”

“Unofficially?” Jonghyun pressed.

“Unofficially…” Key pursed his lips and Minho could tell he was deciding whether or not to lie. Some look passed between him and Jonghyun and he shrugged. “Unofficially I’m the exact same thing.”

“What the _fuck_ , Key.”

That even surprised Minho. Apparently something more had passed between them than he’d originally thought.

“Jonghyun--”

“Don’t fucking lie to me.”

“Time and place,” Onew murmured. “This is not it.”

Jonghyun looked ready to retaliate, but he quieted when Onew gave him a small headshake. Minho forgot sometimes that Jonghyun had been military, or as military as the Browncoats got, which was not always that impressive, depending which commander they served under. Sometimes the less traditional military did better, at least that’s how it had happened in Serenity Valley. He wondered for a second if Jonghyun had been there. It would have explained a lot of his hatred for the Alliance.

Minho had avoided looking too long at Taemin this whole time, but he knew his luck was finally beginning to run out. He sighed, taking a sideways look at Taemin.

“Want to take a walk?”

Taemin held out his hand and Minho took it, pressing their palms together and interlacing their fingers.

“We’re okay,” Taemin said.

Minho had time to give him a small smile before he was rather rudely jolted out of the moment by Jonghyun standing up and heading for the door, followed by Key’s cry of protest.

“Jonghyun, where are you going?” Onew asked.

“I need to… I’ll be nearby.”

“Are you sure that’s smart?” Taemin asked.

Jonghyun ignored him, slamming the door behind him. Minho expected to see Key behind him, but he was sitting exactly where he had been when the conversation had begun. He’d slumped over, his face in his hands.

“I’m sorry,” Minho said. “I didn’t think Changmin was going to hunt us down like that. I thought it would be someone a little more tactful, if it was anyone.”

Key just shook his head, face still hidden. “I shouldn’t have lied to him.”

“He hasn’t let anyone get this close to him since Taecyeon died,” Taemin said. “He wouldn’t be this upset if he didn’t trust you.”

“He’ll never trust me again after this.”

“Jonghyun pretends his world is simple, and, sure, some of it is. The Alliance, and everyone that works for them, is bad. But when he decides you’re worth it, that he really cares about you, on whatever level, he’s willing to die for you. You make things complicated for him. I think,” Taemin shrugged, “I guess it doesn’t matter what I think, but he’s confused. You confuse him, and he’s not used to it.”

“I’m okay if he just trusts me enough to let me finish treating him,” Key said.

Minho snorted. “No, you’re not. Key, just go to him. Talk to him.”

“I have no idea where he is.”

“Three hundred yards straight ahead. There’s a small ravine off to the left that leads down to the lake. It fills up when it rains, but it should be dry now. That’s where he goes,” Joon said, surprising them all. “He spent two days there when you all stopped here, after...” Joon let his voice trail off.

\---

Key didn’t know how he’d never noticed it before, but once Joon had pointed it out to him, it was fairly obvious. It started as just a small trail of rocks and pebbles, but as he followed it downhill, it deepened. Just as Joon had predicted, Jonghyun was sitting there, his knees drawn up to his chest and his chin resting on his knees.

“I told you to stay off your feet,” Key said, coming up beside him.

Jonghyun ignored him except to say, “Nothing hurts.”

“That’s good.” Key looked around and found another good-sized rock, not quite as large as the one Jonghyun was sitting on, just across the ravine. He climbed up there and sat cross-legged, feeling the dry heat start to bake through his clothes. “Can I tell you the truth, Jonghyun?”

“I would love it if one of you told me the truth once in a while.”

“I was working as a doctor on Sihnon, yes. I’d gone to schools that turned out doctor after doctor who worked for a government—for an Alliance paycheck. I was the youngest to ever graduate from my school. I’d been working almost a year, and I was already one of the best surgeons they had, I mean, obviously except for the ones that had ten or fifteen years of experience on me. I never worked for gene-splicing, or any of their ‘secret’ experiments.

“I had just finished a surgery on a kid who had some serious internal bleeding, and they’d just pulled him into recovery. I was about to go and get some food, then sleep, but an Alliance officer stopped me. They told me they had a top-secret, very important surgery that needed performing. I thought it was for some government official, so I went along with it. They brought my team and me into a dark room in the far back corner of the hospital, guarded by eight Alliance soldiers. That’s when I figured out I probably wasn’t putting a stint in some pompous, overweight official.”

Key sighed. He could remember the way it felt, walking into that room and having them slam, and lock, the doors behind him. The lights had been turned on and he recognized where he was. It was one of the operating rooms that had an observation room above, used primarily when there were special and rare surgeries that needed to be performed and upper-level med students would want to watch.

“There was a man lying there, and if it hadn’t been for all of the machines, I would have thought he was dead already. It was Minho, but obviously I didn’t know that at the time. One of the guards there was the younger brother of one of my friends, and so I asked him later what they were planning to do with him. He told me who he was, that they were going to wait for him to heal so they could torture—he didn’t use that word, obviously—him to find out where the rebels were.

“I’m a doctor, Jonghyun. I heal people. I make them better. I don’t heal people so they could be tortured and then murdered. The day before they came for him, I had a friend help me smuggle him out. I changed my name and we’ve been running ever since.”

There was more to the story, obviously. There were days, weeks even, of Key struggling with what he was going to do. Several times he had himself convinced that it wasn’t his place, but the longer he thought about it, the more he realized he couldn’t just leave him to die the way the Alliance would kill him. He also didn’t tell Jonghyun that the friend had been killed as they were escaping, had killed himself once he’d been shot to ensure the Alliance couldn’t get anything from him. That could come later, when Key was willing to think more about it.

The last of his words fell into the silence between them. Key hadn’t taken his eyes off Jonghyun the entire time he spoke, but the other man hadn’t looked up, his eyes fixed on the sun-bleached rocks beneath them.

“You’re not the only one who’s lost to the Alliance, Jonghyun. My family isn’t dead, as far as I know, but I can never contact them. I’m as good as dead to them, and I have no way of knowing if my little sister even remembers me. She was eight when I left for med school, and I was hardly home during those years. I’ve been gone…” Key paused, laughing bitterly when he finally did the math. “I’ve been gone sixteen years.”

“Why couldn’t you just tell me?”

“We’ve been betrayed by Browncoats before. Minho’s worth a lot of money to the right people, and I know the Alliance would love to make an example of me. Besides, would you have taken it any better earlier?”

“I would have liked to know before we kissed, yeah.”

Key hadn’t really expected him to bring that up. He shrugged, trying to pretend that didn’t hurt. “If there had been a way, I would have told you. I’m sorry.”

He waited for Jonghyun to say something, saw his jaw working and his shoulders tensing.

“I know what I want to do, but I don’t know what I should do.”

“Why does there have to be a difference?” Key asked.

“Because I thought I would never find anyone after Taecyeon. It’s been eight months and I’m not over it. It’s too soon, for how much I loved him. Love him. Loved. I still look for him, sometimes. I expect to see him sitting at the table or to hear his voice.”

Key finally let his gaze drop and his eyes close. He heard a few seconds of rustling and then someone touched his shoulder. He jumped, his head snapping up. Jonghyun was close, ridiculously close, his eyes dark and wide and staring at Key so intently he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do.

“Key, can I do what I want to do?”

He just nodded a little absently, his eyes frozen on Jonghyun’s.

“If I do this,” Jonghyun said quietly, “there’s no going back for me. I’m tired of lying to myself and pretending that I haven’t already broken every promise I ever made.”

Jonghyun searched Key’s eyes for another second and then leaned in. It was a different kiss than their first, lacking any of the absolute need for comfort that the first had had. This time, Jonghyun’s lips moved more gently, not trying to draw Key away from the pain. His hands carded through Key’s hair, sending shivers down Key’s spine. Key put his hand along the side of Jonghyun’s neck and he could feel Jonghyun’s pulse pounding beneath his palm. Somehow, that gesture was almost too intimate and he moved his hands to cup Jonghyun’s jaw instead.

They pulled apart entirely too soon for Key, but Jonghyun was almost trembling, his breath coming sharp and uneven. Jonghyun didn’t say anything for the moment, taking Key’s hand and leading him off the rock and down to another one. They sat together on that one, leaning back against the dirt wall of the ravine, and Key didn’t even have to try very hard not to complain about the dirt getting ground into his pants and the back of his shirt.

Jonghyun enfolded Key in his arms, pulling him in tight and letting Key’s head rest against his chest. Key felt as though his heart was swelling, entirely incapable of feeling everything he was feeling right then.

“This is going to be hard,” Jonghyun said.

“I know.”

Jonghyun tilted Key’s head up and kissed him again, his lips warm and insistent, his lower one was damp from where he had licked it and Key couldn’t help himself, pushing up to get a slightly better angle and taking that lip in his teeth. As soon as he’d done it, it was a little afraid he’d gone too far, but he felt one of Jonghyun’s hands catch the fabric of his shirt.

They spent a good couple of hours like that, occasional bouts of kissing interspersed between long periods of silence and sometimes just talking about nothing in particular, the way they had when Jonghyun had been confined to the infirmary on _Juliette_. It was getting cold when they finally headed back up to Joon’s house, Jonghyun’s arm around Key, sharing body heat to keep him warm when he shivered.


	6. Chapter 6

It took the full two weeks Key had predicted to get the injury to stop hurting. He still had a dark, semi-circle scar forming on his side, a fact that Key lamented every time he saw it, running his fingers across the skin and murmuring apologies.

Jonghyun spent most of those two weeks practically attached to Key. If they weren’t sleeping wrapped in each other’s arms, they were holding hands or sitting so close together Key was usually almost in his lap. As Jonghyun got stronger, he helped the rest of them work on Joon’s property, clearing brush and occasionally trying to catch one of the sickly fish in the lake. It was good work, honest work, but it didn’t stop the itch growing deep in Jonghyun’s limbs. He wasn’t meant for this kind of life. He needed to be back in space, back where he belonged, with _Juliette_ beneath his feet.

He never brought it up, but he could sense even Onew getting restless. He saw him staring up at the sky more than once. This was the longest Onew had stayed with Joon in as long as Jonghyun had known them, and although neither man ever seemed to tire of the other’s company, they both had to know that the time would come for Onew to leave.

It did, finally, when Jonghyun was just about ready to ask if he could take _Juliette_ and go somewhere. He woke that day, disentangling himself from Key’s limbs and kissing him softly, to the sound of packing. He didn’t know what it was until he stepped out, ruffling his hair back into position.

“What’s going on?” Jonghyun asked.

“I think it’s about time we get Minho to Highgate,” Onew said. Joon was standing off to one side, his eyes sad. “I’m dying to get back out there.”

Jonghyun tried not to sound too happy that he was dragging Onew from Joon, but there was a reason Jonghyun had never picked a planet and stayed there. He couldn’t help but feel a soft twist of fear in his stomach, though. He’d always assumed Key would stay with them, even before they’d kissed, but with the plan to finally leave Aziel, Jonghyun wondered if he’d been right.

He wasn’t even really reassured when he felt Key’s arms slide around his waist and his lips press against the back of his neck. Key noticed something was wrong almost immediately.

“You’re not hurting again, are you?” Key asked, pressing his palm with unnerving accuracy to the location of the scar on Jonghyun’s side.

“No, it’s not that.”

“Then what’s wrong?” Key asked, circling around to his front.

“Can we take a walk?”

Key’s head tilted a little to the side, looking at Jonghyun with a frown. “Yeah, sure. Let’s take a walk.”

They walked out to the ravine, filled now with a little trickle of water from the previous night’s rain. Key was quiet, watching Jonghyun with something that almost looked like anxiety. They made their way to their rock, settling themselves on it before Key finally couldn’t stand the silence anymore.

“Jonghyun, what’s wrong?”

“We’re leaving Aziel,” Jonghyun said, turning slightly to see Key’s face better. “Are you coming with us?”

“Am I coming with you?” Key echoed. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“I’d never really asked, I guess,” Jonghyun said. He pulled Key in against him. “It’s going to get a lot more hectic out there.”

“Highgate?” Key guessed. When Jonghyun nodded, he just shrugged. “Minho can handle them. Changmin talks big, always has, but Minho wasn’t lying when he said that he was who he was for a reason.”

“Would he stay there? Would _you_ stay there?”

“I hate Highgate,” Key said. “He may have to stay there for a few weeks, but he hates it almost as much as I do. He’d rather be out doing things, but nobody deals with the shit they throw out better than he does.”

“So, you’re really coming with?”

Key laughed, tossing his head and making the light dance across the highlights in his hair. Jonghyun traced them with a finger. He still thought they looked ridiculous, but they were so Key that he couldn’t help but love them.

“I don’t think you can get rid of me that easily,” Key said, leaning in and tilting his head just slightly. When Jonghyun didn’t lean forward fast enough, Key made the move himself, pressing their lips together.

Jonghyun laughed, wrapping his arms around Key and pulling him in. He eased Key down on his back, kissing his way down to Key’s neck.

“Jjong, my _shirt_ ,” Key whined, trying to wiggle free.

Jonghyun ran his fingers through the bright pink tassels on the front without letting the other man up. “I can always take it off,” he suggested.

“I refuse to get sunburnt just because you’re handsy. If you want to start taking my clothes off, I think we should go back to _Juliette_.”

“They’ll be loading her up,” Jonghyun said, pausing his kisses long enough to get the words out.

“Then you’re just going to have to wait,” Key murmured in Jonghyun’s ear. “I’ll make it worth it.”

Jonghyun groaned in frustration, but pulled back. Key took a moment to straighten his clothes and then he stood up, holding his hand out for Jonghyun.

“I promise you’ll like it,” Key said, twining their fingers together and pulling Jonghyun to his feet.

Jonghyun pulled Key in for one last kiss, his free hand on Key’s waist, holding him there. Key ducked his head when Jonghyun released him, and he could see a blush climbing up Key’s cheeks.

“You’re an idiot,” Key informed him, tugging on Jonghyun’s hand to get him walking back toward the house.

He smiled. “You love it.”

“I do love it. I love you,” Key said. His steps faltered and he looked sideways at Jonghyun. There had been no talk of love between them, even if Jonghyun was almost willing to admit it to himself. He could see the panic in Key’s eyes, the fear that he’d gone a step further than he was allowed.

While Jonghyun’s mind was still reeling and trying to backtrack and find out what had happened, Key pressed his free hand to his mouth, eyes widening with horror.

“Jonghyun, I’m sorry. I-I didn’t mean… Well, I meant it, but… I mean… I’m so sorry.”

He felt Key’s grip on his hand loosening and Jonghyun tightened his own grip, refusing to let him go.

“Key…”

“No, I understand. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say it. I understand, really.”

“Just give me a second, okay?”

Key fell silent and Jonghyun could feel his gaze. Jonghyun knew what he felt. He wasn’t dumb, and he wasn’t willing to lie to himself any longer. The only question was whether or not he could say it without feeling like he was betraying Taecyeon.

“I’m sorry,” Key whispered again. He almost sounded ready to cry.

Jonghyun dropped Key’s hand and he heard the broken gasp that fell from his lips, but he put his arms around Key and pulled him in close, resting his forehead against Key’s shoulder.

“I can’t say it yet, Key. I can’t say it and mean it.”

Key nodded against Jonghyun’s shoulder. “I understand.”

He sounded heartbroken, as though everything he and Jonghyun had done, the kisses, touches, even the sex, had meant nothing to the older man. Jonghyun felt the need to reaffirm that it had, but he didn’t know how to do it without saying it.

“I’m… I’m going to go help Minho load some of the boxes into _Juliette_ ,” Key said, pulling away. He rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand, evading Jonghyun’s attempt to catch him.

“Key, wait.”

Jonghyun had to stand back and watch as Key sprinted off toward _Juliette_. He sat back down on the ground, pressing his face into his knees. He’d fucked everything up _again_.

It was over an hour before he heard footsteps, but they were too heavy to be Key’s. They almost sounded like Taecyeon’s, but he knew they couldn’t be.

“You’re going to get burnt bad out here.”

Jonghyun didn’t say anything. He had felt his skin baking in the sun, but it wasn’t bad enough to entice him to move yet.

“You hurt him, you know.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Yeah, he knows that. Doesn’t make it any easier, knowing the person you love is still in love with someone else. Makes you wonder, you know. You try to figure out if you’re just the best alternative. If he and Taecyeon were here now…”

“Don’t ask me that.”

Minho shrugged next to him, sitting and stretching his legs out in front of him. Jonghyun finally looked over at him, his hair ruffling in the dry breeze. “It’s a question you’re going to have to figure out the answer to. Key doesn’t deserve this. He’s not going to hang around forever, waiting for you to figure your head out.”

“Taecyeon’s been dead less than a year,” Jonghyun said, “less than a _tenth_ of the time we were together. I don’t know if Taemin told you this, but I’d only just stopped trying to get myself killed a couple weeks before we stopped on Aziel and picked you up. There’s something really frustrating about almost managing to get yourself killed only after you don’t really want to die anymore.”

“It was implied.”

“Nothing I’ve done with him has been… I’ve meant everything.”

Minho sighed and stood up. He put his hand on Jonghyun’s upper arm, leaving a white print on the red skin. “Get inside. He’ll be on _Juliette_ for a few more hours. You can think about what you want to say to him _without_ turning crispy.”

Joon just rolled his eyes when Jonghyun stepped inside his doorway, skin already turning a painful red. He passed him a jar of ointment, ordering him to make sure he got all of the skin, and then started up the Mule, heading back toward _Juliette_.

Jonghyun was struggling to reach a spot on his shoulder blade when he heard a very, very familiar voice say, “Oh give it here.”

Key’s long-fingered hand snatched the pot from his hand and began smearing the cream on Jonghyun’s back.

“You can’t wear a sleeveless shirt like that out in the sun on a planet like this. You’re lucky you didn’t get a worse burn.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Apologizing to me isn’t going to make this burn go away any faster.”

“That’s not what I was apologizing for.”

Key’s hand had been soothing the ointment into Jonghyun’s back, but he stopped, fingertips pressing a little too hard into Jonghyun’s skin. “Yeah. I know.”

“Key… I like you. Can that be enough for now?”

He saw the expression on Key’s face in the mirror. “It’ll have to be, won’t it?”

Their moment, such as it was, was interrupted by the sound of running footsteps and slamming doors.

“What’s going on?” Jonghyun demanded, pressing Key back behind him in case the danger was imminent. He figured it out when Joon shoved a gun into his hand, one of the ones that had been loaded a few weeks earlier. There were a few others that Joon was hastily loading more bullets in.

Jonghyun grabbed Key, pulling him in tight. Key held onto him, his face blank with fear. “What’s happening?”

“Reavers,” Joon said, his voice tight. He slammed a barricade down over one of the doors. An answering thud came from the back of the house, and Onew came from back there, flicking his hair out of his face.

“We’re locked down as tight as we’re going to get,” Minho said, his hand tight on Taemin’s.

“What the hell are they doing here?” Jonghyun demanded. “They just hit here.”

“I don’t know,” Joon said, “but they’re headed straight for us.”

Jonghyun felt his heart stop. He turned back to Key, putting his hands on Key’s shoulders to make him look straight at him. “You need to listen to me, right now. If the Reavers come through the door, I want you to take this,” he shoved the gun into Key’s hands. Key tried to press it back into Jonghyun’s grip, but the older man shook his head. “If they try to take you, Key, don’t think. Just shoot.”

“I’m really bad with guns. Minho does the guns--”

“Baby, you’re not shooting them. I don’t care if they get their hands on anyone else first, you want to die before they touch you.”

He could see Key’s hands shaking, the tears welling up in his eyes. Jonghyun kissed him.

“I’m a fucking idiot,” Jonghyun whispered. “I’m so sorry. I love you, Key, and I really don’t want that to be the last thing I tell you, but I don’t know how else this could go down.”

“Is there any chance they could pass us over?” Key asked, looking over at Taemin.

He was crouched down on the floor, against the wall, his hands over his ears. “I don’t know,” Taemin whimpered, pressing his hands harder against his ears. “I can hear them. They’re so close.”

Even Jonghyun could hear the engines now. He knelt down beside Taemin and pulled him in for a tight hug. “We’re gonna be okay. We’re gonna figure a way out of this.”

Key spun to face Minho. “Do you still have--”

Minho was already sprinting for the back room, coming out with a piece of machinery Jonghyun had never seen before. “There’s no way they’re still within range,” he said, but he was doing something to it, and a voice came through.

“Minho?” a woman’s voice asked.

“We’ve got Reavers,” Minho said. “I need you to--”

“Make a more appetizing target?” she asked. “We’re on our way. We can be there in two.”

“I’m not sure that’s going to be fast enough.”

There was a slight pause. “A minute-twenty if we trim our vectors, it’s the best we can do without killing some serious acceleration.”

“It’ll have to do. Can you outrun them?”

“If we get a good enough head start, otherwise…” there was a longer silence this time. “It’s a landing ship. We can do better than outrun them; we can take them down. I see you. They’re already on the ground, but I think we can convince most of them to follow us.”

“Jess…”

She laughed, actually sounding as though she enjoyed this. “Thank me later. All right, guys, you know what we have to do--”

The first sounds of Reaver howls began to filter through the house. Jonghyun paused to check Key’s gun. He smiled bitterly, kissing Key on the forehead once more.

“Two rounds. One for you, one for me, okay, love?” Jonghyun waited until Key nodded. “If you miss… If you don’t kill me, save that second shot for yourself. I am not dying knowing they have you.”

“Jonghyun--”

“You gotta promise me that much.”

“I can’t--”

“You can, and you will. You saw what they did. Those were just the ones they left behind. The captives… Promise me.”

Key nodded, a soft sob breaking past his lips. “Okay. Okay, I will.”

“Good.”

Jonghyun kissed him again, raking his hands through Key’s hair, and then turned. Minho was pushing Taemin gently back beside Key. Taemin was holding his gun much more comfortably than Key was. Joon and Onew stood together on Minho’s other side.

“Key?” Jonghyun asked, when all he could hear was the Reavers howling and the sound of their footsteps on the long, wooden entrance to Joon’s house.

“Yeah, Jjong?”

“Please don’t miss.”

“I won’t.”

Onew leaned around and passed Jonghyun his gun, the one that had gotten him through the Unification War. He supposed it was fitting that he should die with it.

Just before they should have heard bodies slamming into the door, the entire house shook as another ship passed overhead. For a second the howls paused. Then they started up again, moving away. For a moment, just a heartbeat, Jonghyun wanted to cheer.

All six of them jumped as fists started pounding on the doors, the screaming starting again.

“How many?” Jonghyun asked.

“Four or five, I think,” Joon said. “It sounds like four. I’m guessing five.”

“Five Reavers, four of us. I’ll take those odds.”

“Engines,” Taemin said. “The rest of them are taking off.”

“The door won’t hold for long,” Onew warned.

He was right. Jonghyun could see the couch getting shoved away with every second, the wooden beam was breaking. He looked over his shoulder at Key, reaching back and catching his fingers.

“We’re gonna be okay.”

“And then you’re going to tell me you love me when we’re not in imminent danger of death?”

“That’s on the books, yeah.”

“Jonghyun,” Onew snapped, “pay attention.”

The door cracked again and this time Jonghyun could see matted hair and mutilated skin. Jonghyun dropped Key’s fingers and took a step forward. He fired and the Reaver fell back in a spray of blood.

“Four.”

If Reavers had been human, that would have made them hesitate. They weren’t. If anything, they attacked the door with more vigor, ripping at the wood with bare hands. It was effective, even if they left smears of their own blood on the fragments.

“If we survive this, you’re getting stronger wood,” Jonghyun said.

Joon gave him the barest sliver of a smile. Onew took the next shot and the Reaver stumbled backwards, but didn’t fall.

“Where did you get him?” Joon asked.

“Side of the throat. He’ll die eventually, but probably not fast enough. They need to make that hole bigger if anyone but Jonghyun’s going to have any accuracy.”

As if planning to prove Onew wrong, Minho’s shot took the second Reaver in the jaw, and he disappeared. Jonghyun heard a ripping sound that took him a second to identify, but as soon as he did, he felt his stomach heave.

“What’s--”

“Don’t ask. You don’t want to know.”

Jonghyun caught sight of a glint of rusted steel. “Speargun!”

Joon and Onew spun to the side, and Jonghyun managed to get Key down, but Minho was a heartbeat too slow. He got Taemin out of the way, but the spear took him through the shoulder.

“Taemin, _hold him_!”

Jonghyun didn’t know who’d given him the order, but he saw the metal cable retracting, Minho getting pulled back with it. Taemin grabbed Minho’s uninjured arm, Key wrapping his arms around his friend’s waist. It wasn’t enough to keep him back, between two or three Reavers pulling on one side, plus the mechanical retraction.

“We’ve got you covered,” Joon said. “Get him.”

“If a Reaver grabs me, please shoot it,” Jonghyun said, sidling toward the door. He could see a place where the Reavers had connected a second length of cable. He didn’t know, but short of getting the gun themselves, it was the best chance he had at a weakness.

“Stop talking,” Minho growled through gritted teeth. “This hurts.”

“Jonghyun, knife.”

Jonghyun held his hand out, only half paying attention. Years of practice made the catch easy, the hilt landing solidly in his palm and he slammed the point down into the knot. It was the work of a few seconds and he felt something snap. The recoil of the cable caught his cheek, lashing his head sideways, but Minho was falling back onto Taemin and the Reavers were already lunging back toward the door.

He heard Key calling his name, but he shook his head. “Take care of Minho. I’m fine.”

Before he even had a chance to consider what his next step would be, he heard the sound of what could be nothing but heavy artillery and machine gun fire.

“What the--”

Minho was sitting up, ignoring Key scolding him from the side. “Jess.”

“I don’t care if it’s Artemis,” Key snapped, “ _stop moving_. I need to get this thing out of you.”

There was a sudden too-loud silence and then the sound of more running feet, then a woman’s face appeared in the hole in the door.

“Cavalry,” she half-sang.

“You are batshit crazy, woman,” Minho said. “Let her in.”

Joon and Onew were already shoving the couch aside and removing the broken remnants of the wooden barrier over the door.

A few hours later, after Minho had been knocked out and the spear removed, Key tracked Jonghyun down at the ravine, carrying a small bag with him.

“I thought you might be here.”

Jonghyun just smiled, holding his hand out to help Key up on the rock. “How’s Minho?”

“Still out. His arm will be out of commission for a while, but maybe it’ll make him look more intimidating when he goes back to Highgate. Let me see your cheek.”  
  
Jonghyun turned his head so Key could see the cut. It wasn’t deep; it probably wouldn’t even scar, but Key still tended it as carefully as if it had been life threatening. He placed a bandage over it, and then a kiss on top of the bandage.

“I sure hope you don’t kiss all your patients,” Jonghyun said. “I might get jealous.”

“Just the ones I really like.”

“Well, that’s good.” There was a slight pause. “I do love you, you know. I’m just… a fucking coward most of the time.”

“You’re not a coward,” Key said, curling up against Jonghyun’s side. “I understand, as long as telling me you love me isn’t conditional on us almost dying.”

“No, I’ve had plenty of that these last few months.”

Key nodded and Jonghyun could see the faintest smile curling on his lips. “Jess and the rest of her crew headed out. They were keeping watch on Minho, actually. Apparently something big has gone down on some planet inward. A bunch of Reavers and Alliance were killed. They wanted to make sure nothing happened to him before he sorted things out on Highgate.”

“Good thing they did, or we’d be dead. Are we still good to leave today?”

Key made a soft, affirmative sound. “The rest of them got _Juliette_ all loaded. When I left Joon and Onew were trying to finish getting everything strapped down. Minho’s fine, so we can go whenever you’re ready.”

“Let’s go,” Jonghyun said, standing and pulling Key to his feet.

Key had gone back to the house to collect Minho and make sure he had all of his medical stuff, leaving Jonghyun to help with the last of the loading.

He was pulling the webbing over one of their cargo holds when Joon appeared at his side, holding it in position so he could lock it down.

“You could come with us,” Jonghyun offered. “There’s room.”

“I know,” Joon said. He brushed his hair out of his face when the webbing snapped into place. “I’m needed here for now. There’s a lot of rebuilding to do.”

“He’d like to have you here.”

“I’d like to be with him.”

Jonghyun didn’t know what to say to that, so he just said, “I’ll bring him back safe this time.”

Joon just smiled, already distracted by Onew descending the stairs into the cargo bay. Jonghyun turned, hearing voices heading toward them.

“What do you _mean_ you got lost on Boros for three days?” Minho demanded.

“I don’t know how to use a compass!” Taemin protested. He readjusted the bag over his shoulder. Minho’s fingers snaked beneath the strap and pulled it free, hooking it over his uninjured shoulder instead. “Compasses don’t exactly work in space!”

“Remind me never to let you out of my sight if we’re on a planet, okay?”

Taemin just huffed, rolling his eyes and continuing up the stairs. “Boros is confusing, it’s not my fault.”

Jonghyun laughed. The laughter stilled when he felt an arm wrap around his waist, but the smile on his face grew as he laced his fingers together with Key’s.

“Ready to go?” he asked.

Key nodded. “All of my stuff’s been moved to your room.”

“That’s my cue, then,” Joon said.

“You know how to get hold of us, if anything should come up,” Jonghyun said.

Joon nodded absently, leaning in to kiss Onew goodbye. The rest of them were, by that point, essentially ignored. Jonghyun heard a familiar clattering sound and then _Juliette_ shuddered beneath his feet and then sprang to life. Taemin seemed as eager to get them in the sky as Jonghyun was to be there.

“I love you, Jinki,” Joon said, kissing his forehead. “Come home to me safe this time, okay?”

“I will. Stay safe here, love. I’ll be back soon.”

Joon kissed him once more and backed down the ramp and off the ship. “Hey, Jonghyun?”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe next time I’ll take you up on your offer.”

“I think that’s a good idea.”

“You’ve got a couple more people to take care of now. You think you can do it?”

“I think I’ve got it, yeah.”

“Good. I’ll see you all soon. Tell Taemin to get her in the sky.”

Jonghyun smiled and pressed the button to close the doors. Joon backed away as Onew headed up to the cockpit and the ship rose slowly, ponderously from the ground. As soon as they hit outer atmo, Jonghyun felt Taemin kick the ship’s engines up higher and they were back in space, exactly where they belonged.


End file.
